Archive of Old Blog
Due to technical difficulties I decided to give up on my old Blog Site and move to this one which is not nearly as slow and faulty as the old one. But I had a lot of posts to the old site which I am going to carry over here and post as one monster Archive post. All the old site blogs appear below:
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New Age Biology
Well, I finished up my MIT Differential Equations Course (
Although the course title says ‘Introduction’ it is goes fairly in depth to:
a) Biochemistry
b) Molecular Biology
c) Genetics
It is far advanced of any biology I ever had in High School. In fact in introducing the course, one of the instructors makes the point that 80% of what we know in the field has been learned in the last 40-50 years. It is a brand new field with knowledge growing constantly. The DNA double helix was only discovered in 1953.
The instructor also makes the point that the course, unlike older biology course from our high school days, is not about memorizing phyla, and families of organisms, or dissecting frogs, it is all at the molecular and cellular level. That’s where the action is now days. The first things studied are the basics of chemistry and then the evolution of cells from building block molecular structures. I have already learned amazing things like an enzyme (a type of protein) causes up to 500,000 chemical actions to occur in a second.
I bought the $80+ textbook for the course brand new at half.com for $15 bucks (I felt good about that one).
I feel really good about studying this material because I feel like it’s the missing link I never got to study from the memorizing the species and body parts version of biology I previously got. This is the really inner workings and cause side of the science. And I have been fascinated with the fact that DNA codes 3 billion bits of information in every cell, which in essence is a computer-like programming code, that we are just starting to understand.
I highly recommend the course to anyone with an interest in the area.
Quantum Mind Boggle #1
Think the atoms you were taught about in school are solid little building blocks? Wrong! Atoms are virtually empty. How empty are they? Well if a basketball were the nucleus of an atom, the electrons would be circling at about 20 miles away. The rest ... is empty. Well, sortof. Actually, more recent data shows that there is energy in that ‘empty space’. In fact, Scientists are now saying that there is more energy in a cubic centimeter of ‘empty space’ (about the size of a marble) than in all the matter in the known Universe.
For you scientific types, see Van der Walls Forces, and the Casimir Effect for more data.
Quantum Mind Boggle #2
When electrons move from orbit to orbit about an atom (there are multiple orbits of different distances from the nucleus) they don’t move the way objects normally move in the physical universe. They disappear from one place in orbit and suddenly appear in another. This is called a Quantum Jump. (These electrons are all we ever really touch or experience directly.) Scientists can only calculate the probability of where the electron will be in its new location after a jump. Dr. Satinover says: “Reality as we experience it is constantly being created freshly at every moment out of this pool of possibilities, but the real mysteriousness in this is that out of that pool of possibilities, which one is the one that is gonna happen is determined by nothing that’s part of the physical universe. There is no process that makes that happen.” That is why some say that Quantum events are the only true random events in the Universe.
Quantum Mind Boggle #3
One of the basic principles of what we consider the real world, and of classical physics, is that one can measure and determine with accuracy the position and speed of objects we encounter. Depending on the instruments used we can get very precise readings of the location and speed of all objects and thus make many predictions about their behavior. Well, when objects get very small, down to quantum sizes, this is not true anymore. The more accurate you measure the location of an object the less accurately you can predict its speed. Or the more accurately you measure its speed, the less accurately you can measure its location. Early on in Quantum Physics Werner Heisenburg proved that you can not accurately know both the speed and position of an object. This is known as the Uncertainty Principle.
Quantum Mind Boggle #4
Just as the insides of an atom are not solid, it turns out that the particles that make up an atom aren’t really solid either. Paradoxically, they seem to act like a particle at times, but only when observed. At other times they act like a wave. Yes, that is right, these particle/waves, like electrons, behave differently when observed than when not observed. Their wave state when unobserved can only be predicted as a probability distribution. It would be like try to say where waves are on water, or like sound waves. They are spread out and variable. But when observed these sub-atomic components ‘collapse’ into a particle, more like a solid object that we are accustomed to. Not knowing how to describe them some scientists have called them wavicles. The truth is that both descriptions are just analogies to familiar concepts, and we really don’t know exactly what the nature of these wave/particles are.
Quantum Mind Boggle #5
‘Spooky action at a distance’ is what Einstein called it in disbelief and in his refusal to accept this idea. Yet later experiments have repetitively shown it to be true without a doubt. You start with two particles which are related, shoot them off in opposite directions, either a short distance or all the way across the universe, it makes no difference, and then change the state of one and the other will instantaneously change its state also. The phenomenon occurs outside of space and time. Its technical name is ‘Quantum entanglement’. This whole concept implies that what we hold most sacred and dear, time and space, plays no part in this scenario where particles seem to be in touch outside of these bounds. Some have called this the most important discovery ever made in Science.
The phrase ‘Mind Boggle’ and the idea of listing out the boggles, comes from concepts in the book ‘What the Bleep Do We Know?” by Arntz, Chasse, and Vicente.
BURNING DOWN THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE
· 213 B.C. - Following the advice of Li Si, Qin Shi Huang ordered all philosophy books and history books from states other than Qin to be burned (and also the live burial of a large number of intellectuals, who did not comply with the state dogma).
· Temple of Ptah in Memphis – Egyptian Library destroyed
· Asia Minor – Library of Pergamus –200,000 books destroyed
· Carthage – When Romans attacked, 500,000 books lost
· Egypt – Julias Caesar attacks and burns Library of Alexandria – 700,000 books lost
· 391 A.D. – Christians destroyed the rest of Library of Alexandria
· 1500 A.D. – In Andulucia, Spain over 1,000,000 Arabic and Hebrew books were destroyed on the orders of the Archbishop of Granada (Spanish Inquisition)
These are just a few of the highlights.
What could we have learned from these millions of books?
Would we live life differently today?
7 Signs of a Closed Mind
1. They ‘know best’. On virtually any the topic the Closed Mind will know better, have better knowledge and be superior. Unfortunately, for the Closed Mind they can’t learn anything new because the already ‘know it all’.
2. When presented with a viewpoint they don’t agree with anger is likely to arise and the different idea or viewpoint will be utterly rejected without consideration.
3. They love to use derogatory labels to avoid confronting opposing viewpoints. They may say its just ‘leftist’ propaganda, or ‘right-wing’ propaganda, or its just ‘conspiracy theory’ nonsense. Thus with an appropriate label they don’t have to think about it and just dismiss it.
4. In extreme cases the Closed Mind may totally refuse to even look at any data if it does not agree with their data.
5. The Closed Mind is not related to intelligence. In fact the intelligent Closed Mind will show these signs in a more obvious fashion as they more vehemently defend their closed-minded positions.
6. The Closed Mind will often resort to name-calling as a way of avoiding looking at opposing views. Similar to #3 above, but on a more personal basis. Like “he’s commie-pinko-fag”. Thus dutifully dismissing anything the so-named individual might say.
7. The Closed Mind may seem like a regular guy in most social conversation until some idea, opinion, data or viewpoint comes up that opposes his fixed viewpoint, and then suddenly ugly walls of intolerance of other views raise up, and sometimes violently, not unlike force fields snapping on.
MOON FACTS
The moon was visited 6 times by astronauts between 1969 and 1972 and never again.
842 pounds of rock and soil samples, photos and videotape and 5 nuclear-powered scientific stations were placed on the surface.
Despite the public perception that we had learned all we needed to know from the moon, to the contrary great unsolved mysteries were revealed which we still don’t have answers for.
The moon is far older than previously believed before the moon landings. One rock from the moon was dated at 5.3 billion years. The oldest rock found on Earth dates about 3.5 billion years old. The Earth is believed to be about 4.6 billion years old
Lunar dust found on the surface was about a billion years older than the rocks.
The lunar dust was found to be of a totally different composition than the rocks. Usually dust comes from the weathering and break up of rocks. In this case it appears the dust and rocks come from different places.
The moon has three distinct layers of rocks. Usually, it was thought that rocks that are heavier sink and would be found deeper down below the surface. In the case of the moon the heavy rocks are on top.
The different composition of metals on the moon and the Earth suggest they came into being far from each other.
Analyses of the moon’s density lead many prominent scientists to conclude that the moon must have a hollow center.
When the Apollo 12 lunar module ascent stage rocket crashed to the lunar surface, the seismological instruments recorded a reverberating, or ringing effect, that lasted for over an hour. As if a bell had been run. There were other similar incidents when something hit the surface. When the Apollo 13’s third stage hit the surface the gong effect lasted over 3 hours.
Unusual metals were found on the lunar surface. A large amount of titanium in the lunar seas, rustproof iron particles from the Sea of Crisis, and Uranium 236 and 237 not previously found in nature.
There is no good answer to how the moon got into orbit around the Earth. The capture theory, according to such scientist as Isaac Asimov is not credible. The moon is in a nearly perfect circle orbit around the earth with an exact rotation period the same as the revolution period (thus making the dark side always stay away from the Earth). Besides the moon is too large to be captured. Calculations show the chances of all this happening to be too small to be seriously considered.
Let’s Not Have A Party
Probably not a very popular idea at a college fraternity, but maybe an idea whose time has come in American politics. Why choose a party when you can be Independent and choose to vote for, support, and rally behind whatever particular issues you want without concern of crossing a ‘party line’.
I think playing the ‘let's take sides’ party-game is inane (if not insane). Perhaps the typical problem is not being informed and knowledgeable enough to make decisions. But this is just the kind of laziness, or disregard, which plays into the hands of politicians and allows them to manipulate the citizenry.
“the price of freedom is constant vigilance”
In my opinion it is just a lack of confront in not viewing all issues and situations on their own merit. By going along blindly with what one party says you don't have to think and evaluate each issue.
What if the Independents grew larger than either of the approved establishment parties? Don’t you think that would shake things up a bit? In an election the candidates more or less assume they will get the party vote for the party they are running for. They throw out a few crumbs to assure the party that they have their interest in mind. But if it is any contest at all, they work a lot harder to gain the Independent vote, because that will be what decides the election. Well, let’s say the Independents grew to be about 30-40% of the vote. And they were all looking very closely at each individual issue, each candidate position and promise. Maybe, even Independent Candidates would emerge that ran for office without a party. What a mind-blowing concept.
I know, I am just a dreamer; a rebel; fighting the system. But I am encouraging everyone to register as Independent. Let’s stir things up a bit. Make the politicians work a little harder for our money.
MY NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTION
Or
Don’t Get Fooled Again
I have noticed a ploy, a tactic, a PR technique so insidious, yet so obvious, that I seem to get caught in it time after time. This being the time after time time of year I decided I would vow not to be deceived again.
Make no mistake about it. This IS the primary Population Control technique used on this planet. I have perused historical events back thousands of years, and looked at events up to present time. I see the same pattern appear over and over.
Here is how it works. There are three phases (I have borrowed the names of these steps, but names are unimportant, it’s the concepts that count):
· PROBLEM – This is a created event, or a natural event that is taken advantage of. It is usually something dramatic, like a catastrophe, an act of war, or something shocking, like a death or assassination. Whether it is artificially created (as often happens) or occurs by circumstance, makes little difference for the next two steps. Also, it matters little if the event is based in truth, or not, as long as it can be perceived to be true until the next to steps are completed.
· REACTION – This is where the PRs go to work. It is their job to work up an emotional response in the populace. This is often outrage, shock, patriotism, or fear, for example. It might be said that whatever emotional fervor is played upon, usually it has fear of something in its underpinnings. The PRs work through media, largely now days, but also through opinion leaders and any other communication lines available. Often times key phrases are developed that are repeated over and over, as if the number of times repeated makes it more true. This PR campaign goes on until the population is worked into such a state of outrage or indignation or fear that they are demanding that something be done to solve the untenable situation. The end product is to produce a feeling of Chaos such that the people feel they need order to be brought into the scene.
· SOLUTION – At this stage some public official, usually in a government post, and often the leaders of the nation step in with a firm resolution of how to handle this chaotic out of control situation. The solution brings order to the chaos, but in the process, usually little noticed at the time, something is given up. Often the process of bringing order means giving up some of the civil liberties of the populace in order to implement the stability. If the PRs have done their job well, the populace is in such an emotional state that they don’t mind this. Sometimes, more control is gained by those already in control, in the form of more taxation. Sometimes the control is in the form of windfall profits for the groups who control the politics of the country. But always, there are major steps forward for those in control, albeit often behind the scenes, at the expense of the general population. Yet, at the time, the populace will not complain because they are relieved of the chaos they have been pounded with and have ‘order’ brought into their lives.
I think some examples are in order.
1. Eugenics – There was a fervor worked up about the Problem of the Human gene pool being contaminated. The Reaction was huge in that scientists, political leaders, and celebrities jumped on the bandwagon proclaiming what a catastrophe was at hand. The Solution aided Hitler, for one, to gain to control of much of the world, and the German government to have incredible control over the population. For more data about this see Michael Crichton’s essay:
2. TeenScreen – In this case the Problem was not based on true data. There was supposedly an epidemic of suicides among young people. As it turns out this is totally not true. But the word got out and the Reaction started before the lies could be squashed. School officials, government agencies and parents were bombarded with shocking data about the rising suicide rate in teenagers and how unbearable it was to not stop these suicides by catching the symptoms early on so they could be stopped. This played upon the buttons of child protection, death of young people, etc. and was guaranteed to get an emotional response. The Solution was offered to Screen all children and get them treatment to prevent the suicides. Of course in the process parental rights are given up, control of the emotional and mental being of the children is turned over to the schools and thus the government, and a huge number of kids are put on drugs. Even though there is no real technology that works for either screening or treating the kids.
3. Taxes – There are many many examples here. Just one to illustrate the point. There was an earthquake (substitute any natural disaster). Much damage was done and recovery and repair costs were high (Problem). Much publicity and media coverage portrayed how bad it was and showed lots of footage of the victims. Their needs were played up to the max. (Reaction). A temporary increase in Sales Tax was proposed to help with the relief efforts (Solution). Everyone accepted this because after seeing tons of new coverage they knew they had to do something. The increased Sales Tax was never rescinded.
4. Wars – I will avoid the sticky issue whether the War on Terrorism was the correct action or not, but just look at the other consequences. Obviously, the 9/11 attack was the Problem. The Reaction has probably never been bigger in U.S. media history. There was a huge emotional reaction to this event, and it was fed incessantly, like fuel on a fire by the media. Americans were demanding that something be done in most cases. This huge reaction actually was so large that it allowed several Solutions to be slipped in. One of which was the Patriot Act. This supposedly temporary suspension of Civil Liberties is still largely in effect, and there are tooth and nail battles going on to make it permanent.
All of these situations involve giving up of something by the general population, and the gaining of something by those who would control or take advantage of the population. All use the same basic technique. It might be added that on the topic of Wars, that with incredible consistency, a study of history will show that many many times both sides of the battle are financed by the same banks or financial sources. In order to create a war, the populations of both sides need to be convinced of the Problem (some shocking incident) and stirred up to want to fight (Reaction). Leaders know that it is hard to enter a war without popular support. It is necessary to create that support where it is otherwise naturally lacking. Usually, there are key events that trigger and win over the population’s support of a war. I will leave the rest of this research to you.
So my resolution is that, knowing the above, I will not get tricked into supporting or believing in causes without thorough research first. This may seem easy, but with the media getting most all its ‘news’ from PR Releases from not impartial sources, it can be very tricky.
Please help me with this by trying to keep me on my toes, and I will do the same for you.
Have a very Enlightened and Prosperous New Year.
BAD LOGIC, BAD NEWS
BAD LOGIC, BAD NEWS
I have noticed an unfortunate trend in recent times whereby seemingly intelligent people whilst defending their favorite politic, or attacking their corresponding favorite hated politic, seem to lose an ability to think analytically, and in fact foster a mental functionality akin to that of morons. Some examples are warranted and forthcoming. Let’s take the much-touted number comparisons that are proliferating in rants all about the web and in little nasty acrid emails supposedly passed among friends. Here are a couple:
“There were 39 combat related killings in Iraq during the month of January.
In the fair city of Detroit there were 35 murders in the month of January”
“In Vietnam, from 1965-1975, 58,000 lives were lost, an average of 5,800 per year”
Now these are being used to justify the deaths in Iraq. Since there were 35 deaths by murder in Detroit, then it’s really not so bad that there were 39 deaths of soldiers in Iraq. Because there were more deaths per year in Viet Nam, then the deaths in Iraq are no big deal. Now who can spot the outpoints here, raise your hand. Well, let’s see:
1 1. Because something bad happens in Location A of a greater magnitude, then something bad happening in Location B is OK
2. A=A=A One situation involving deaths = Another situation involving deaths = All situations involving deaths. No evaluation of differences, only identities
3. There is a lack of evaluation of the ethics of the situation based on stats and data – the attempt is to sway thought by emotional comparisons that are unrelated
I have also heard the same kind of logic comparing the deaths in New Orleans floods compared with the deaths in 9/11. What the … talk about apples and oranges. I forget even which way it went now, but supposedly one was not so bad because the other was worse. What a perverted use of statistics.
All of this bad logic is of course an attempt to justify something. In one case it’s the current ‘war’ effort; but it is I.Q. 50 level logic not worthy of anyone with a smattering of intelligence. Yet, apparently some strains of emotion occasionally identified as ‘patriotic fervor’ seems to infect reason like a virus and bring it to its knees. Or perhaps it just mental laziness, where it is easier to go along with the mob think on a subject when it aligns with avowed stances. Whatever the cause it certainly does not align with reason, or what could be called contemplation of optimal survival.
If one really wanted to evaluate the situation in Iraq, for example, it would involve getting actual data and statistics. I would suggest looking at some of the following:
1. Survey of the people in Iraq to see if the U.S presence is currently wanted These are just some of the areas to gather data in. But with this kind of data one could make a decision as to what the most pro-survival course of action is. You notice this approach has nothing to do with stupid comparisons to deaths by murder in Detroit, but evaluates the situation only in the area concerned and only with facts and data relevant to the existing scene.
2. An honest evaluation of various stats concerning business, standard of living, education, etc. to see if there has been improvement or degradation since the U.S occupation
3. Survey of people in Iraq to see if they perceive the direction of change since the U.S. Occupation as being positive, neutral, or negative
4. Evaluate which individuals and groups have benefited from the occupation and which individuals and groups have not benefited – weigh these against each other
5. By statistic determine if local, and world, terrorism has increased or decreased since the occupation
So snap out of it you unknowing purveyors of illogic. I am not trying to tell anyone what they should think, let’s at least think. Let’s use the analytical part of our minds a bit here. OK?
Comments on Recent Votes
Its interesting to try to figure out what side of the issues our elected officials are on. Consider these recent votes:
Recent Senate Votes
National Defense Authorization Act, FY2006
- Vote Passed (98-0, 2 Not Voting) The Senate passed this $492 billion bill authorizing Department of Defense expenditures for the 2006 fiscal year. Despite all the Democratic rhetoric withdrawing from Iraq, the huge Defense Bill seems to have 100% support on both sides of the ailse.Recent House Votes
Sense of the House Regarding Fields v. Palmdale School District
Now this on this issue the people and our representatives seem to be unanimous in standing against it. Makes you wonder who the judges are representing.
Troop Withdrawal Resolution
The House rejected this non-binding resolution calling for the immediate withdrawal of troops from Iraq.
Again, despite all the rhetoric, the House almost unanimously votes against calling for an immediate withdrawal. No wonder so many people vote Republican. The Democrats have no backbone to vote on their own issues.
FANTASTIC VOYAGE
The Science Behind Life Extension
By Ray Kurzweil and Terry Grossman
”Live Long Enough to Live Forever” is the other byline of this book. Now before you dismiss this as some fairy story about searching for a ‘Fountain of Youth’, I would impress upon you that this is not the case. In fact, just the opposite in many respects in that this book presents all the ‘scientific’ data, much of it very recent data, on the subject of aging and what can be done to stop or reverse the processes. And taking it much further it projects into the future the trends of Biotechnology and Nanotechnology. It shows us what lies down the road 10-30 years from now.
The basic concepts of the book revolve around the idea of building and using three bridges:
Bridge 1 – Present day therapies and guidance that will enable you to remain healthy long enough to take full advantage of the construction of the Second Bridge
Bridge 2 – The Biotechnology Revolution. As we learn the genetic and protein codes of our biology, we are gaining the means of running off disease and aging while we turn on our full human potential. This bridge will lead to the Third Bridge.
Bridge 3 – Nanotechnology-Artificial Intelligence Bridge. This will allow the body to have enhanced functions and even be rebuilt at a molecular level.
By far the largest part of the data presented in the book is in the Bridge 1 phase. I must say I was fascinated by straightforward presentation of modern research data, which read much like the Operating Manual for the Human Body (which I sorely missed when first obtaining said body).
Aging is treated as a basket of symptoms, rather than one inevitable process, and each individual area is treated separately with all known modern data and handling. The idea is that if you handle handle handle each of the maybe 14-15 areas composing the whole we call ‘aging’ that you can slow down, stop, and perhaps reverse the process in many instances.
The explanation of Heart Disease and its prevention is well worth the price of the book alone for anyone who might possibly have any concern in this area. For example, very recent research is cited which shows that the two most common procedures used for heart patients, by-pass surgery and angioplasty, actually are not even effective. Patients without these procedures are shown to do just as well statistically as those who had them. Other solutions are however provided for handling the symptoms of heart/cardio-vascular problems.
There is also a thorough explanation of Sugars, Carbos, and Fats, with explanations all the way to the molecular diagrams, and how these affect the body. The authors have knack of explaining these workings, with modern research data, in a technical way without going out of the intuitive reach of the lay reader. Very informative.
Bridge 2, Biotechnology, includes various types of gene therapy, new high-tech bio-engineered drugs, cloning tissues, etc. Based on the current avenues of research it not only possible but very likely that all major diseases will be curable in one fashion or another in the not distant future. Also, all the various aging processes are likely to be reversible with these biotechnology advances.
You might wonder what is left for Bridge 3? Well, it gets a bit wild here. First, you must realize that at present we are already able to build nanobots (small robotic machines on the order of a billionth of a meter in size) that are able to construct proteins and interact with cells. But what is in store 20-30 years down the road? Well, one idea is to have a nutrition belt which contains a compact condensed material to feed you body. It interacts through your skin much as patches for various purposes do now. Nanobots in your body sense your current nutritional needs and interact with the belt to make sure you are always supplied with just the right amount of basics nutrients at all times. Just think, this could mean no tiredness, no ups and down through the day, always having you body function near optimally.
Another idea is to have Nanobots totally take over you intestinal tract. They would only break down and metabolize only what is good for you and dispose of the rest, including excess carbos. Thus you could eat whatever you want, not get overweight or take in anything toxic to your body.
Also, of course, Nanobots will easily be able to monitor your blood stream, clean up the plaque on the arterial walls and dispose of excess cholesterol. And this is just the beginning. Eventually, scientists in this area think Nanotechnology will be able to reshape a body, make it stronger, replace organs functions and make them 1000% more efficient.
Bionic Man here I come!
Sniffing Destiny
Sniffing Destiny’s Ass Looking For a Clue. Has Chronos swallowed Hades And his daughter Hestia too.
Whereon treads this dream of Man To rise above the Beasts To Love with Courage, To Hate with Fear To Dream of Godly Feasts.
Roll in the Mud you Prophets of Doom Let Gaia cloth your Soul Let the fiery passion of Desire Burn down your darkened Goal. Be the way, Be the Path Be the Blazing Light Of all the Mind Can’t Grasp Let Love of Life Be Your Sight.
(and then be on your way)
MY RESPONSE TO BRITISH MEDICAL JOURNAL ARTICLE ON TEENSCREEN
Dear Ms. Lenzer,
I appreciate your bringing this topic up for view because I think a lot more attention needs to be put on it. I know as a parent I am outraged that such a program is being proposed and that there is an attempt to get every teenager in the U.S. screened, including my 16 year old.
First, the methods of promoting the program are insidious. There are attempts on some versions of the program to bypass parental consent, by using passive consent. And then there are the petty enticements, like offering candy to a baby, to win the kids over. Offering videos, store coupons, etc. The organizers admitted they had a low response rate when doing a straightforward method of sending a letter to parents asking for permission, so they started using more devious techniques.
Second, I have seen the questionnaires used, and asking several of these questions in a row can depress a person in and of itself. And asking questions like have you ever felt depressed? I would be willing to better everyone has at sometime. So I don't agree that their screen tools are valid or worth anything scientifically. Yet there is major risk if they create a false positive result. Which brings me to the next point.
Third, the great majority of kids that get indicated as showing suicide symptoms (by whatever non-scientific method) are put on drugs. This has been the case historically with the TMAP program, which is TeenScreen's predecessor. Also, they are labeled for life with some fabricated 'mental' disorder, and are thereafter classified as a 'mentally ill' person. Would you want this because your kid said he got depressed once or twice?
Fourth, this program is the ultimate in Big Brother intruding into our lives. It is not the function of the Federal government to be involved with the 'mental health' of our children. I as a parent am responsible for my child's disposition and I don't need government help. The assumption seems to be that parents are unable to take care of their kids themselves; therefore government will bypass them and do it for them. Wrong.
Fifth, and finally, the only ones who really benefit from this program are the Drug companies that are able to put the kids on drugs. Studies of the previous TMAP system in Texas showed this was a windfall for Big Pharma. It seriously raises the question if this is the only real reason for the program.
The TeenScreen program should be stopped dead in its tracks.
Sincerely,
Larry Jones
___________________________________________________________
For more data on TeenScreen see www.psychsearch.net/teenscreen.html
A WORTHY PURPOSE
"My purpose is to bring a barbarism out of the mud it thinks conceived it and to form, here on Earth, a civilization based on human understanding, not violence".
Interesting quote. One would think that those running our governments misunderstood this concept and did the opposite. One gets the sense we are trying to create 'a civilization based on violence, not understanding'. A reverse vector. Is there any 'understanding' involved in our relations with other nations? Or in other words, is there affinity, reality and communication going on in our relations with other nations; any at all. It is hard to see, if it is. It appears that whoever demonstrates the most force, whether it is weapons, or economic, dominates, and that this kind of domination is the objective. And that a true understanding between peoples of the respective nations is discouraged, if not actively prohibited.
For example, what if we started a program where an American citizen was to make a friend with a citizen in an 'enemy' or 'hostile' nation, and huge numbers of Americans did this. The objective would be to get in communication with and really understand the other person’s life style, desires, needs, wants, activities, etc. Get in total understanding. I wonder if the government war programs would still be supported.
Or maybe let the leaders of the nations who want to go to war fight it out in an arena. Only the leaders, and let their battle decide the issues worth going to war for. I wonder how many leaders would step and fight the war on those terms.
But I wander, and I wonder, what is a civilization based on human understanding.
A Worthy Mission
"Right Flank, are you ready?" "Yes, Captain" said Sgt. Cirrus. "Left Flank, are you ready?" "Yes, sir" said Sgt. Cumulus. "Let’s Roll!" roared the Captain, as he headed the charge over the Mountains and toward the Valley below. They had carefully stayed out of sight away from the leering eyes of the weathermen and inhabitants of the Valley for most of the day. The main part of the Army was passing east just north of the mountain range but this company of special forces had lingered behind waiting for the right moment. The plan had been to let the solids believe that the whole army was headed by them in the North, but just as they were feeling assured, strike with wind-swift speed across the Mountains and surprise them.
Now they were rolling due South in big black moist masses atop the startled masses. The solids were stopping mouths agape pointing at the sky. Yes, thought the Captain, we will make you wet, we will make you cringe. You shall know that we rule the Air and we rule the Sky. You cannot predict our Wills, for Movement of the Air is our choice alone.
The move had been planned the night before and coordinated with Brother Wind. Out of nowhere he had marshaled up 30-40 mph currents to zip them south at the designated time. And the timing had to be perfect. Father Sun was slantedly giving show of his preliminary Rays to closing the Day. But before his Rays became too oblique… we must rush, head to the South, condense … condense … moisture … YES! We have done it. A Rainbow worthy of Perfection!
Let the Solids not forget who Rules the Air!
THE CRADLE OF CIVILIZATION
What was once Mesopotamia is now Iraq. What was once Canaan is now Palestine. Our modern civilization is found to have evolved from the area called the Fertile Crescent. This extended from Egypt in the East over to what is now the Persian Gulf in the West, and was crescent-like including the land North of these two points. Since the last Ice Age, about 10,000 B.C. this land was very conducive to agriculture. Mesopotamia means ‘Land Between the Rivers’. Namely, the Tigris and Euphrates. Though this was a very rich agricultural area, civilization didn’t really take off until around 4000 B.C.
This is the setting for the book I recently finished entitled Genesis of the Grail Kings by Laurence Gardner. You might remember I reviewed a previous book I read by Gardner about the real history of Christianity based on documents rather than church dogma. Well, that was all A.D. This book traces history B.C. and sorts out what is fact and what is fiction in the Genesis creation story. It turns out there were some major alterations in the Genesis story, which the Hebrews recorded centuries later. By comparing to ancient records recovered more recently, it is easy to tell the basis in truth and what was substantially changed in the accounting.
First, consider this bit of history of man:
It took man over a million years to figure out that he could use stones better by chipping and flaking them
It took another 500,000 years before Neanderthal Man figured out how to use stone tools
It took another 50,000 years to develop basic irrigation and cultivation of crops, and some knowledge of how to work metals
This brings us up to about 5000 B.C. All other civilization, mathematics, engineering, electronics, etc. happened in the last 6000-7000 years. When did this acceleration actually start? Well, it seems that as of about 4000 B.C. there appeared a civilization in Sumer, and since then man became pretty radically more civilized. The Sumerian civilization was based on and integrated with the rule of the Anunnaki. The Anunnaki were the Gods of this civilization, but they were not Gods in the sky, like modern religion, but Gods that walked the Earth and actually had governmental meetings and physically appeared before the people that they ruled. They appeared to have advance knowledge of many areas of arts and sciences, which they transferred in various forms to the people of Sumer. Sumer consisted of 12 City-States.
“Central in every city was the temple, and every city had its own deity, that was believed to protect the city. The city was fortified, and to it belonged a rural zone where agriculture was performed. The major crops were barley, wheat, dates and vegetables. They also raised cattle, donkeys, sheep and goats. Textiles were made from wool from the sheep”
They were the first to use bronze. The developed the first pictograph writing system. Most languages can be traced back to some origin. No one knows where this language came from. They developed studies of mathematics, astronomy, and many sciences, and developed the arts and crafts. Where did all this civilization come from all of a sudden?
Gardner traces back the Genesis creation stories to older civilizations, which all had creation stories, and eventually back to Sumer and the Anunnaki. For example, there apparently was an Adam. But ‘Adam’ meant ‘model’ in Sumerian. The records show that the Anunnaki did a little genetic experiment of taking the seed of a human and combining it with the seed of a ‘God’ and putting it in the womb of one of the ‘God’ woman to fertilize and grow. Thus a new Model of Man was created. And similarly with Eve. This was about 4000 B.C. This explains a lot concerning contradictory biblical accounts and archeological data.
Also, the origin of the Hebrew God Jehovah, later the all-in-one Christian God, was traced back to one of the major Anunnaki Gods Enlil. He had a brother Enki, who was much friendlier to humankind, and directed the breeding experiments, e.g. However, Enlil tended to be quite vengeful and destructive at times. He actually wanted to wipe out all of mankind at one point. The Hebrews, impressed by his awesome vengeful nature adopted him as their God (the Christian God of Vengeance?). However, there were other groups and racial lines which followed Enki. Thus, there were many intrigues about bloodlines, and political disputes throughout history about which line was the true god-heritage. This all sounds like sci-fi doesn’t it? But Gardner is convincing in presenting all the documents and archeological evidence of the true story.
There are many, many interesting ideas, and weird data which we grew up with, which are cleared and straightened out by aligning the data properly. For example:
Why later Hebrew writers bad-mouthed the bloodline of Cain and altered his history
Why there was so incredibly much incest throughout history in royal bloodlines (and the Gods)
How there used to be Gods and it got narrowed down to One God
Why those in the old Sumerian bloodlines, and biblical accounts, used to live to be almost 1000 years old, typically
What really happened with The Flood, which is recorded in many histories of many races
Also, Gardner is big on clearing words to their origins. He traces history all the way up to early Christianity, including how the Egyptian history dovetails into all this. All and all this was a very interesting and revealing read.
And who were the Anunnaki? Well, I can only speculate. But they walked the Earth among mankind, and it is written that they rode across sky in Chariots of Fire.
ITS ALL IN THE WORDS
"What's in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other word would smell as sweet."
--From Romeo and Juliet (II, ii, 1-2)
"Better than a thousand hollow words, is one word that brings peace."
Hindu Prince Gautama Siddharta, the founder of Buddhism, 563-483 B.C.
You know of course that we are no longer in a ‘War on Terrorism’. Nope, ratings are down, its time to call the PR guys and come up with a new slogan. After careful surveying and considerable thought about brand name positioning our own government PRs came up with the catchy phrase, ‘Global Struggle Against Violent Extremism’. Doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue does it? (Even Donald, the Aspartame King, Rumsfeld stumbled trying to spit it out.) But, hey, who are we to argue. These same guys came up with the ‘War on Terrorism’ slogan and who wudda thought it would have lasted for 4 years. I am sure that if they can get another four years service out of this slogan, before a trade-in on a new model, they would be more than happy that they have done their job.
But, can we read more than just a catchy jingle in these new words? Perhaps there is meaning in the words that we should pay attention to.
Firstly, notice that ‘Global’ is now used, when before it was just a ‘War’. A war is against a named opponent, or sometimes a few known opponents. A war goes on for a set period of time. But by prefixing the slogan with ‘Global’, this seems to leave fighting our ‘enemies’ wide open to anywhere we want to go on the planet, and for an undetermined length of time. As you can assess, this widens our vista and leaves our options wide open. But ‘struggle’? Doesn’t sound very forceful, does it? A ‘War’ has virility. A ‘War’ can have character. But a ‘struggle’? A ‘struggle’ has a certain implied possibility of ineffectiveness in the attempt. I mean I struggle to get up in the morning when I drank too much the night before. I struggle with the temptation to have a brownie when I am trying to lose weight. I struggle with the urge to purposely ram into the person in the car with the cell phone sitting at the intersection in front of me after the light turned to green. But these ‘struggles’ are minor compared to a ‘War’.
And of course, it’s not a ‘War’, so we are just ‘Against’ them. We are not necessarily fighting someone, but we are ‘Against’ them. We are struggling against them. How nice. We may not actually do anything effective, or we may fail, but at least it is known that we are against them.
And we have ‘Violent Extremism’. The war was on ‘Terrorism’. But we are against ‘Violent Extremism’. I guess this opens up more possibilities of enemies this way. Does ‘Violent’ cover more than bombings, kidnappings, and executions? I should think so. The WWE comes to mind right away. And extremism? Well, I think that could be defined as any thought that varies too much from what we are thinking at the moment. For example, I would say that when recently a right-wing rabbi put a curse on Sharon, willing him to die within 30 days (
But this leaves me thinking into the future. What phrase can we use next that will be catchy and carry us forward to our destiny. Hmm… how about Galactic Endeavor to Reconcile Differences with the Bad Guys. Oh well. I’ll keep thinking about it. I guess I am just not government PR trained. Maybe you have an idea for a new phrase?
References:
THE FABRIC OF THE COSMOS
(or How to Crochet a Universe for Fun and Profit)
I just finished The Fabric of the Cosmos by Brian Greene. You may recognize him as the author of The Elegant Universe which was also done as a video series on Nova through PBS. I saw The Elegant Universe series on TV and was suitably impressed, so read his follow up book. (By the way, the 3-hour series is viewable on the internet at: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/elegant/).
First, let me say that Brian has an unusual talent for taking difficult topics and presenting them in a way that can be grasped intuitively. The subtitle for the book (not really what I wrote above) is SPACE, TIME AND THE TEXTURE OF REALITY. And he covers all these topics, giving the very latest ideas of the most brilliant minds of our times, and translates these ideas into terms that can be understood by laymen of limited scientific and mathematical background.
To start the ball rolling, Brian starts the bucket spinning. Yes, the old thought experiment of Newton using a bucket of water. If you have a bucket of water and start it spinning, at first the water is flat on the surface. Then as it continues to spin the water starts creeping up the sides of the bucket and the surface goes concave. Then, interestingly when the bucket stops spinning, the water is still concave and spinning. So the question is, what is the water spinning relative to? Not the bucket, because its spins both when the bucket is spinning and when it is at rest. Newton postulated it was spinning relative to Absolute Space. In other words space is the background for all motion. This kicked off a big philosophical, and physics, discussion on what exactly is Space. Is it something, or is it nothing. There have been many varying views down through the centuries. The book actually ends with a discussion of the latest theories suggesting that space isn’t continuous. That is it comes in lumps. Perhaps like a mesh screen. The matrix of wire gives the impression of continuous space, but there are holes where there is nothing, not even space.
If I have one gripe with Brian’s writing it is that he goes on too much on some topics. Illustration after illustration and restating the same thing slightly differently over and over. I suppose better to over cover the topic than not, but I find in tiring in some cases. For example, entropy is discussed way too much. I kept thinking, “OK, Brian, I got it!”
Well, two gripes, actually. He makes a really big deal about time and how unexplainable it is that it only goes in one direction. This is a reoccurring theme throughout the book. I personally think there is a big misconception about time in physics, and they have gone off in the wrong direction in trying to figure it out. In the first place it is only defined in terms of space and moving objects in space. Sort of circular definitions. If there were no objects, or space to put them in, there would be no time. Secondly, it is always considered a dimension. It doesn’t really follow as a like concept. For example, if you had a question on an IQ test or SAT or something like:
Apples
Oranges
Peaches
Sailing
Well, obviously, one of these doesn’t fit in with the scheme of things. So when we list dimensions we go:
Line
Square
Cube
Time
I go, wait a minute (pun intended), something doesn’t fit here. I tend to believe that time is just a metaphor to help us understand phenomenon in the physical universe. I do believe that there are extra spatial dimensions, that we don’t see, and these get confused with time somehow. But, apparently, a lot of physicists don’t’ see things my way.
An interesting piece of data discussed at some length is the fact that visible matter, what see can see and observe with instruments in most cases, only accounts for 5% of the universe’s mass. The other 95% is apparently either dark matter, or dark energy.
At any rate, overall, it is a very interesting look at what the latest, most accurate information is, and what the latest theories are, on this place we live in. Such topics as quantum physics, cosmology, the Big Bang, the cosmological constant, string theory, brane theory, teleporters and time machines are covered to name a few.
I would recommend the book for anyone, with perhaps some slight background or interest in physics, to get a picture of the current state of science in these areas. There are some wild and exciting things going on and books like Brian’s allow the average Joe to gleam some understanding of these frontiers.
PsychScreen – A Psychiatric Diagnostic Tool
Research clearly demonstrates that a psychiatrist’s healthy and social involvement with society is dependent on his having a clear conscience about what he is doing. His readiness, success, and overall well-being in pursuit of his profession may well depend on this. Prevention and early intervention efforts have proven effective in cutting unethical behavior in the bud and allow the psychiatrist to have a normal life subsequently. In fact, early action may prevent him from himself receiving costly mental treatment, or perhaps putting extra stress on the social and welfare systems. Prompted by President Bush’s New Freedom Commission on Mental Health, it is the goal of the program to screen every psychiatrist and mental health practitioner in the United States.
Here is how the program works.
Step One
The psychiatrists are offered free movie passes, or alternatively candy, to come take a survey.
Step Two
The psychiatrist is sat down and asked a series of questions such as:
1. Have you ever had sexual relations with a patient?
2. Have you ever prescribed drugs without considering the consequences to your patient?
3. Have you ever had the secret intention to harm your patient or make them less able?
4. Have you ever prescribed drugs with the intention of making someone easier to control rather than make them better?
5. Have you told others that your diagnosis was based on science when it wasn’t?
6. Have you ever electric shocked anyone?
7. Have you ever recommended brain surgery to cure an emotional problem?
Step Three
Based on the answers to the survey questions, the psychiatrist is given a label, such as ‘sexual pervert’, ‘quack’, ‘drug-pusher’, or ‘dirty old man’. It is pointed out to the psychiatrist that these disorders are not his fault really but that they are just the result of a chemical imbalance in the brain. In some cases there is also a genetic predisposition. These disorders are clearly defined in the Diagnostic and Usage Manual for Psychs, Release 1. (DUMP I).
Step Four
An expert trained in psychiatric disorders evaluates the survey and the label decided upon in Step Three and comes up with a barbarism score. This figure reflects just how barbaric his treatment of patients has really been.
Step Five
Although the PsychScreen program makes no recommendations for treatment, at this stage treatment is suggested. He is told he has a chemically imbalanced brain, or that he has bad genes. In either case it is made clear there is nothing he can do about it, except take the recommended prescription drug. In some severe cases ECT therapy may be recommended.
This is the program in its simplicity. Based on recent surveys it is shown that 90% of all psychiatrists have psychiatric disorders. We don’t expect a high cure rate on the program but at least most of the psychiatrists will be drugged. It is imperative that we all support this program to clean up America.
IS THE RELIGIOUS RIGHT REALLY RIGHT? - PART V
Although Armageddon had been mentioned occasionally in American politics in the past century, never had such serious religious discussion interwoven itself in politics as it did after 9/11. Teddy Roosevelt said he was standing with the Lord of Armageddon. Reagan was preoccupied with Russia being the ‘Evil Empire’ and how it fit the description of ‘Gog’, the power to the north invading Israel. But none of this was ever taken too seriously by the main stream, and just written off as dramatics. By the time Bush took office and in the years that followed this changed. The topic was now very real and very much a part of foreign policy.
In 1999, Newsweek polled Americans on End Times, Armageddon and the Second Coming of Christ. 45% of the Christians polled believed that the world would end with an Armageddon and a battle between Jesus and the Anti-Christ. Of those with this belief, the large majority thought that natural disasters, epidemics and shootings implied the end was near. Further, of the 90% of Americans that call themselves Christians, 71% of the evangelical Christians (religious right) believed in Armageddon, while only 28% of the non-evangelical and 18% of the Catholics believed in Armageddon. By doing a little math on the statistics, we can calculate that about 55% of the Bush voters in 2000 believed in Armageddon. So it appears that 75-80% of all the Armageddon voters voted for Bush.
The effect of this thinking can hardly be underestimated. Given the religious background of Bush and his staff, and the support of the majority of his electorate, bold new directions in policy were developed. Here is a quote from Gershom Gorenberg, an American Jew who moved to Israel and wrote the book, ‘The End of Days: Fundamentalism and the Struggle for the Temple Mount’:
“If there is any place in the world where belief in the End is a powerful force in real-life events, it’s the Holy Land. The territory today shared and contested by Jews and Palestinians is the stage of myth in Christianity, Judaism and even Islam… The impact of such belief on a complex national and religious struggle has received too little attention. It underlies the apocalyptic foreign policy promoted by many on the American religious right: support for Israel based on certainty that the Jewish state plays a crucial role in a fundamentalist Christian script for the End. In Israel, belief in final redemption has driven the most dedicated opponents of peace agreements. Among Muslims, expectation of the final Hour helps feed exaggerated fears about Israel’s actions in Jerusalem. Belief in approaching End has influenced crucial events in the Arab-Israeli conflict. Time and again, it has been the rationale behind apparently irrational bloodshed.”
Although, “high” Islam pays little attention to these ideas of apocalypse, lesser established offshoot versions of Islam, attributed to Muhammad, take up the idea that there is a Jewish Antichrist who will be defeated by Jesus in the name of Islam (what a mess). Nevertheless, starting in the 1980’s hundreds of books promoting these teachings started appearing in the Middle East and became best sellers. These Muslim radicals have fanned the flames of hate and terrorism with these offbeat religious teachings.
So religious fundamentalism has reached a peak on both sides of the conflict. Each believes that the other side is evil and that they must defend their holy land. Both believe in End Times. Both feel God is on their side and their path is guided by divine inspiration.
But, even this is not the total picture or whole motivation for these conflicts. Then there is the world of oil. But perhaps that will be another discussion on anther day.
OPEN COURSEWARE
Did you know that you can take courses from major universities, online, for free? I have just finished the first two semesters, the first year, of undergraduate physics at MIT. Same courses as MIT students take. I saw all the lectures (on video). I used the same textbooks, had the same homework problems, and the same exams. How is this possible? Check out:
Now, not all the courses here have video lectures. That is the key for me. But there are a number of significant courses that do. Physics 801 and 802, the first and second semesters of Physics, are great courses taught by Walter Lewin. Lewin has been at MIT since 1966 is renowned for his dynamic and engaging lecture style. His students love him and often show their appreciation on creative ways, like singing songs for him.
As far as my personal story, I have always loved physics. For reasons I won’t go into, I never pursued this line in college, but I did study some first year college physics while I was in high school. Back in those dinosaur days, calculus was not taught in high school. Nowadays, anyone serious about physics is expected to have at least a years worth of calculus under their belt by the time they go to college. But first year college physics, when I was in school, didn’t include calculus because the student hadn’t had it previous to going to college. So, I have always wanted to study physics with calculus. And I found it great. This is the way a lot of real physics was developed and you miss a lot by not getting the calculus origins. Newton, father of classical physics, was also one of the inventors of calculus, and invented it in large part because he needed it to figure out how things worked in physics.
The first semester was all about Mechanics. Motion, momentum, collisions, rockets, torque, oscillations, fluid mechanics, heat to name a few topics. Great foundations in understanding how the world operates around us as far as solid bodies go. The textbook for this semester is available online.
The second semester was on Electricity and Magnetism. I bought the textbook for this course. This is an area I always wanted to study more and understand. The highlight of this course was probably understanding Maxwell’s Equations. These four differential equations (calculus) describe everything we know about electricity, magnetism, light, radio waves, x-rays and much more. Maxwell predicted that there was such a thing as ‘radio waves’ before anyone even new they existed, based on these equations. Such compact expression of so much, and such elegance! But also the course covered topics like rainbows, musical instruments, black holes and binary stars.
I should point out that Professor Lewin likes to demonstrate all the principles discussed and in the videos, every lecture includes getting mass on the topics being discussed through impressive and interesting demonstrations in the classroom/lab.
Now that I have completed these courses I am going on to fill in some areas of math that I was lacking in. While I was in high school I took 5 semesters of calculus from a local junior college. In the first four semesters (2 years) I had a very good instructor and I really liked learning calculus from him. It was fun and exciting. Then on the fifth semester I took Differential Equations. The instructor was horrible, and I got misunderstoods early in the course. I sort of bombed on my pursuit of calculus at that point, though I did go on to get a B.A. in Math from University of Michigan. I pursued other math-related courses buy not further in calculus. Well, and Open Courseware MIT course has the videos of there course in Differential Equations. I have started this and ordered the textbook. I have cleared my basic misunderstood already and am looking forward to continuing my education in this line.
Also, I had only a cursory look a Linear Algebra in my previous Math courses, so I have also started the MIT Open Courseware class in Linear Algebra. This also is a full course with all the lectures on video. Professor Strang, who delivers the lectures, writes the course reference text, which I have ordered also.
I have recently discovered that Professor Lewin third semester Physics course on Vibrations and Waves is also available with full video lectures. I will enroll next semester at Larry U for this one.
Why am I studying all this you might ask? Well, my long-term goals are to understand the universe we live in. The best descriptions we have involve mathematics as the language of expression. My goals are to understand Relativity, Quantum Mechanics, and String Theory, not just from the layman version of the works but also from the mathematical expressions of the theories. I have read many lay books on the topics, but I am sure I am missing the deeper understanding of and elegance of the theories as these books compromise to gleam ‘some’ understanding.
So, in summary, I feel I have found a great resource and I would like to share it with everyone with a desire to learn and understand more. I suggest exploring the MIT Open Courseware site, and there are other sites popping up around the web also. What a great concept. First class education from top universities while sitting in the comfort of your home.
Enjoy.
ECONOMICS.. HOW BORING
So that’s why I thought I would read this book called, "Economics in One Lesson", by Henry Hazlitt. Actually, it was suggested to me by my good friend Dave, the Rocket Scientist (no really, I’m not kidding). It is only 211 pages long, but covers all the basics in the subject of economics, from a very practical consideration of the economics which affect our everyday lives.
What is especially interesting is that he evaluates each area from the standpoint of how a certain economic policy affects not just the short run or a special group but how each area of economics affects all areas of society and life, and not just now but in the future (across the dynamics
I couldn't help but thinking this would be a great grounding in an otherwise complex subject, that would give Delphi students an understanding they could approach the topic of economics with. This is like a roadmap through the tangled and convoluted subject that passes for modern economics today. Based on common sense, concrete examples and evaluation of what is pro-survival across the dynamics
I would also recommend anyone else who would like to put a bit of sanity into the otherwise willy-nilly, mumble-jumble wacky world of economics to pick it up.
WHOM DOES THE GRAIL SERVE?
This is how the book Bloodline of the Holy Grail starts out. Did you ever wonder what the real story was of how Christianity originated? We know that Roman created Councils put together selected books with selected viewpoints Centuries after the happenings of the origins of Christianity. Well, the author of this book, Laurence Gardner, is a Genealogist, and Historian extraordinaire. His specialty is genealogy and history of Royal families. His sources of data include not just the Council approved books and writings that appear in the official Bible, but books written by other disciples, books from some of the same disciples whose writings were in the Bible, but books that were not chosen not to be included, writings by historians of all ages, later discovered books such as the Dead Sea Scrolls to name a few. There are literally 100’s of books and writings from the early Christian period, which are not in the Bible.
So what are some of these differences between the official version, and the Bible versions of what happens? Major differences. For example, a fairly suppressed concept is the fact that Jesus came from a Royal family. He was heir to the title from King David. He was genealogical the heir to the title of King of the Jews; this was not just a spiritual metaphor. This is explained thoroughly. Also, substantial documentation is given to the fact that Jesus married Mary Magdalene, including the ceremonies of royal marriage, which actually appear in the Bible but are misinterpreted. The path of Mary fleeing from Rome and into France is documented pointing out the many monuments, shrines and churches that were founded in her name and still exist in many instances today.
Another major difference; did you know that most of the early Christian groups did not believe that Jesus was Divine in nature. This idea was started mainly by the Apostle Paul, but not believed by the majority of early Christians of various groups. About 300AD the Roman Emperor Constantine took up this Pauline version of Christianity and decided to make it the official religion of Rome. Of course, it was done for political reasons, and he altered the original concept and declared himself the Godhead on earth to represent this new All-In-One God.
The threat the Roman Church felt from the true original Christians is covered and the incredible suppression the Roman Church created to squash any inkling of an idea that the church should be run by the royal family is almost beyond belief. Also, the organized suppression of the role of woman in religion, feeling threatened by the existing bloodline of Mary Magdalene, and the suppression of woman in society in general is of importance.
And then there is the other side of the royal bloodline, which rooted in England through Joseph of Arimathea (Jesus’s brother). He started the first Church in England, in Glastonbury, before 100 AD. This connection is traced through the royal bloodlines of the Scots and others all the way up to modern times. The royal families were well aware of the connections and this documented in many ways. Also, the royal lines of kings in France and continental Europe were connected through Mary. Included in the appendix of the book are Genealogical charts of every royal family in Europe. 90 pages worth. Why the High Stewards of Scotland became the Stuart line of Kings. How the Merovingians royal line came about in France.
I could go on with the fascinating history covered in this book, but just let mention a couple of more that I found really interesting. Like how the Knights Templar came to power, ran most of the banks in Europe, were considered the most powerful group on the planet and then fell from power and went underground. Or the real story of Author and Merlin.
But back to the original question. Whom does the Grail Serve? Well, apparently, the Grail Code was that the King was supposed to serve the people. This seemed to get all twisted around and reversed in other quarters where the King ruled and the people served him. But the Grail Code was an oath of service to the betterment of the people. The honor and reverence from the people is built on respect of this dedication to service, not because of force. Interesting idea, eh?
An Ode to Taxes (or Taxes are Odious)
If you drive a car, I’ll tax the street,
If you try to sit, I’ll tax your seat,
If you get too cold, I’ll tax the heat,
If you take a walk, I’ll tax your feet.
Sound like a dramatic exaggeration of the truth. Think again, taxpayer. In 1695 William and Mary, ruling England at the time, implemented a tax on light and air. That’s right, any light or air that came into a house in more than six windows was considered an extravagance to be taxed. So you didn’t have more than 6 accessible windows in your house or you were subject to this incredible tax. This law stayed on the books for 156 years. You can still see bricked up tax-saving windows in houses in England today.
This just illustrates the concept that governments and sovereigns will tax anything they think they can get away with. No holes (or windows) barred.
With April Fools day coming up (no not the one on April 1st), I thought I would remind you of the most effective way to make a dent in this cancer on society. Do what you can to support the Fair Tax:
Here is the complete lyrics of the Beatles song, Taxman:
Let me tell you how it will be,
There’s one for you, nineteen for me,
‘Cos I’m the Taxman,
Yeah, I’m the Taxman.
Should five per cent appear too small,
Be thankful I don’t take it all,
‘Cos I’m the Taxman,
Yeah, I’m the Taxman.
If you drive a car, I’ll tax the street,
If you try to sit, I’ll tax your seat,
If you get too cold, I’ll tax the heat,
If you take a walk, I’ll tax your feet.
Taxman.
‘Cos I’m the Taxman,
Yeah, I’m the Taxman.
Don’t ask me what I want it for
(Taxman Mister Wilson)
If you don’t want to pay some more
(Taxman Mister Heath),
‘Cos I’m the Taxman,
Yeah, I’m the Taxman.
Now my advice for those who die,
Declare the pennies on your eyes,
‘Cos I’m the Taxman,
Yeah, I’m the Taxman.
And you’re working for no-one but me,
Taxman
IS THE RELIGIOUS RIGHT REALLY RIGHT? - PART IV
As we entered the 21st Century we found religious fundamentalism rampant on a global level. But the three religions, which took center stage, are Islam, the U.S. Protestant Right, and the Radical Jewish Right. And they seem to be interlinked and/or connected through common goals or adversity. Also, the worldview of people in one part of the world seemed to increase into concerns and interests in others in other parts of the world.
For example, the Economist reported right-wing U.S clergy were “spoiling for a clash of civilizations. Jerry Falwell has called the Prophet Mohammed a ‘terrorist’. He has since apologized, but Pat Robertson, who called him a ‘wild-eyed fanatic,’ a ‘robber’ and a ‘brigand,’ has not. Franklin Graham, son of Billy, has branded Islam ‘evil’.” Former Southern Baptist Convention president Jerry Vines called Muhammad a ‘demon-possessed pedophile.” Etc.
Tom Delay, second highest-ranking Republican in the House of Representatives, determinedly calls the Palestinian lands by their Biblical names “Judea and Samaria”, and says in no uncertain terms they belong to Israel. And of course Iraq is in the location of the ancient nation of Babylon. Evangelicals tend to view Babylon as a wicked city and Jerusalem (in Palestine) as a glorious city. Thus there is a connection between the religious right in the U.S. and the hardliners in Israel. Rabbi Eric Yoffie, the head of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, deplored how the evangelicals and their preachers “see any concession as a threat to Israel and in this way they strengthen the hardliners in Israel and the Unites States. That may make it difficult for the peace process to go forward”
Some American preachers of the Religious Right have tried to speed up the Biblical destiny of Israeli/Palestine situation. If a red heifer were born in Israel it would signal the re-building of the Temple. The “Cattlemen of the Apocalypse” are American livestock breeders who are shipping herds to the Holy Land to help bring this about. Of the 145 ‘illegal’ Israeli settlements, monies from American Evangelicals support 1/3 of them.
Evangelical members of the U.S. Christian Zionist movement created and funded the Jerusalem Temple Foundation in California to research geophysical foundations for the new Temple. Unfortunately, for them, a large part of their money was used up in legal fees when 29 Israelis were arrested in 1983 for planning to blow up Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque, which was standing in the way of building their new Temple. Hilton Sutton, president of the Christian Evangelical Zionist Congress of America and the National Christian Leadership Conference for Israel, was one of the foundations organizers.
On September 14, 2001 George W. made a speech calling for a “crusade … against a new kind of evil.” “Crusade” is obviously a touchy kind of word to spit out to the Muslim world, at least. After four days of adverse reaction to his calling for a Christian Holy War, he was forced to back off. But by 2003, with the help of the Religious Rights other leaders, like Falwell, Graham and Robertson, he was again charging ahead with the Crusade theme. Of course statements like Graham saying Islam is “a very evil and wicked religion” was circulated all through the Middle East and fanned the flames of protest and antagonism towards the U.S.
In 2003 Bush picked the Reverend Jack Hayford to give the benediction at the Fifty-fourth Inaugural Prayer Service at the National Cathedral. Hayford had founded the Promise Keepers, and believes in Christian Reconstruction or Dominionism. This practice involves the belief that it is a Christian’s duty to bring the whole world under the ‘Rule of God’, which is, of course, their particular set of beliefs about God. Anthony T Evals of Dallas also has a worldview of Christianity and was speaker at the pre-inaugural Washington Prayer Luncheon in January of 2001 (sponsored by the way by Sun Myung Moon, more on this later), put together by Doug Wead. Evans was once quoted by a British journalist as saying about Bush, “one of the impetuses for his considering running for president was biblical teaching. He feels God is talking to him”. Both Hayford and Evans believe in “Kingdom Now” and Dominionism. They believe that to rescue the world, the “people of God” must seize the earthly power. They don’t believe prayer and evangelism is enough but a Christian political movement and social reform are necessary because Christ will not return to earth until a Reformed Church is set up.
All this dovetailed nicely into George. W.’s perceived mission in the world. For example, Bob Woodward wrote in his book Bush at War that Bush was “casting his vision and that of the country in the grand vision of God’s master plan”. This was based on such statements by Bush on September 14, 2001, like: “Our responsibility to history is already clear: To answer these attacks and rid the world of evil”. But even way before 09/11, while running for office in 1999, Bush had assembled pastors for a “laying on of hands” and told them he had been “called” to a higher office. The pattern persists a year after 09/11 when David Gergen, an advisor of presidents for a long while, told the New York Times that Bush “has made it clear he feels that Providence intervened to save his life, and now he is somehow an instrument of Providence”. Baptist minister and Interfaith Alliance leader Welton Gaddy analyzed Bush’s speech and rhetoric and concluded “you see a growing feeling he [believes] he is, in fact a divinely chosen leader in this moment of history. It’s as if he discovered the power of religion late in life and thinks the nation needs to [do the same]”.
Although all this bode well with the Religious Right, some controversy began to stir in some circles about the meshing of religion and politics. Even the most religious presidents had managed to keep religion in the role of moments of reverence but not have religion assume the role of a strategic mandate. To weave together international geopolitics with the Bible was a first for a president.
Further controversy erupted with Bush’s belief that Jesus’ gospel would fit alongside of and collaborate with Sun Myung Moon, the self-proclaimed messiah of the Unification Church. The little promoted association with the Bush family began during 1995 and 1996 when Bush Senior, after leaving the White House, made as least nine paid appearances in Buenos Aires, Montevideo, Tokyo, Washington and other places on behalf of Sun Myung Moon. Moon, a Korean businessman and evangelist, dismissed Jesus as a failure and set himself up as “the Lord of the Second Advent”. Moon was paying George H. W. $100,000 per speech. La Nacion, an Argentine newspaper, reported that Bush and Moon might do business together in South America. When Argentine president Carlos Menem asks Bush about the connection, Bush said he only did it for the money. But the relationship actually started many years before, in 1976, while Bush was CIA Director. This is when Moon first came to Washington, and at the time it was widely speculated that the Unification Church was a front group for the South Korean Central Intelligence Agency. Bush Senior pushed a strong position of allowing U.S. allied intelligence agencies to be active in the U.S. Moon went on to establish the newspaper, the Washington Times, which was a strong supporter of Reagain-Bush during the 80’s, and also defended Iran-Contra and other Republican causes.
Despite what he told Carlos Menem, Bush Senior was all praise for Moon and his conservative newspapers, including the Times. He was portryaed in the Buenos Aires press in a Reuter story on November 25, 1996 as “Bush Praises Sun Myung Moon as ‘Man of Vision’”.
On January 19, 2001, a little over 4 years later, Doug Wead arranged a Moon-sponsored Inaugural Prayer Luncheon. There were over 1700 public officials, conservative activists, and ministers at this luncheon. Many felt deceived that they were invited, and attended without being told that Moon was involved in setting it up. For example, Morris Chapman, chief executive of the 18 million member Southern Baptist Convention said, “I was shocked to see that Sun Myung Moon was on the program and, in essence, the host. I was even more surprised on the way out to be given a propaganda book on the Unification Church.”
He also commented the event “will serve to remind evangelical Christians that the world increasingly is filled with wolves in sheep’s clothing.” Many were puzzled by this event and Moon’s acceptance in Washington. Journalist Steve Hassan said, “Here’s a man [Moon] who says he wants to take over the world, where all religions will be abolished except Unificationism, all languages will be abolished except Korean, all governments will be abolished except his one-world theocracy, yet he’s wined and dined very powerful people and convinced them that he’s benign.” Very strange indeed.
Next, the role of Prophecy and Armageddon in the White House.
IS THE RELIGIOUS RIGHT REALLY RIGHT? - PART III
Although there was a political backlash brewing all through the 70’s against the liberal ways of the 60’s, and ‘secular humanism’, the power of the Religious Right did not manifest itself with great power until around 1979. Washington conservative strategist Paul Weyrich and Virginia minister Jerry Falwell created the Moral Majority to combat the spread of ‘secular humanism’. The Religious Roundtable was set up by evangelical activist Edward McAteer to join up political and religious conservatives. The Christian Voice was set up in California to grade office holders on issues like school prayer, abortion, and sex education in schools. As a result of all these and other efforts, Ronald Reagan became the first president to be publicly supported by and allied with the Religious Right.
Reagan won by a landslide in 1984 and was generally considered in high regard by the Religious Right even thought his actions of rolling back secularism were not as strong as his rhetoric. George H.W. had little trouble riding the wake of Reagan in 1988 and gaining support from the Religious Right, as previously covered. But as his ratings dropped, he pandered to right-wing preachers and this tactic did not bode well. He was not convincing as a fundamentalist. But even in defeat in 1992, he captured 7 of 11 southern states.
But as George W. (George the Second) pushed ahead in his political career he engaged in politics in Texas. While George W. was much more convincing as a true born-again fundamentalist, he also chose Texas as his political field of action, and the Texas deep religiosity worked in his favor. By survey, 92% of Texans felt religion was important in their lives. 70% attend religious services regularly. 87% pray at home at least once per week. Over 7 out of 10 Texans believe that the Bible is literally God’s word and that all of its prophecies will come true. Such was the playing field which George W. entered. Fundamentalist religion had great sway in Texas politics and there could be no better place for a born-again fundamentalist Republican governor to run.
By the time the 1998 elections rolled around George W. had to play the politics just right, and with his expert help he did just that. He had no trouble rewinning the Texas governorship but he was also, in 1998 and 1999, warming up for the Presidency. His Texas governorship was steeped in deeply religious foundations, yet nationwide the Christian Right was embarrassed by its role in the excess promotion of the Clinton impeachment. The voters had a sense that there were too many pastors in politics. Yet on the other hand Clinton’s moral bankruptcy served Bush well, as a moral religious Republican. So the tactical decision was made to secure the support of the Religious Right’s leaders and power centers privately and to convince them to keep a low profile. Meanwhile George W. started filling his speeches with more moderate words his father had used in his campaigns, like “reading”, “literacy”, “children”, and “education” in order to attract the moderate conservative. So successful was his strategy that for the first time in U.S. History the George W. Bush became the leader of the Christian Right and President of the United States, simultaneously.
It was not always the case that the Religious Right was represented by the nominal Republican Party. 30 to 40 years before it had been the more secular Catholics that were inclined to be Republican, and the more traditional ethnic Catholics were Democratic. By 2000 this had reversed. The more old-line Catholics voted for Bush by a 3 to 2 margin. Also New York City’s Orthodox Jews, some affiliated with Israel’s Religious Right, also tended more toward Bush. Al Gore only pulled about 25-30 of New York’s Orthodox and Hasidic Jewish vote. Also, more than a million Muslims voted in 2000, and they voted strongly in favor of Bush. So the Republican Party became the party of the fundamentalist type godly vote, while the democrats slipped more toward the secular vote.
Religion and 09/11
If George W. Bush was not generally accepted as the leader of the Religious Right when elected President, he certainly consolidated that position after 09/11. In Bush’s speech of October 7, 2001, when announcing the U.S. attack on Afghanistan, Biblical scholar Bruce Lincoln did a line-by-line analysis of his speech. There are at least half a dozen thinly veiled references from the Book of Revelation, Isaiah, Job, Matthew, and Jeremiah. For those not familiar with the Bible the references may have gone unnoticed, but for those attuned to the biblical text Johnson concluded:
“By the [speech’s] end America’s adversaries have been redefined as enemies of God and current events have been constituted as confirmation of scripture”.
To the Christian Right Bush’s invocation of Good vs. Evil and his assumption of a biblical leadership role sat well and increased his stature with the Religious Right. For the more secular population he also represented a clear position and plan of action, which in a time of chaos was accepted as well. During this time of overwhelming passion and emotion Bush’s statements still did not ring well with some. Some mainline Protestant leaders worried about the misuse of religious language and the breaching of the wall between Church and State. However, these voices were drowned out by the emotional fervor of the times.
Here are some other comments during the period of time:
From the Washington Post in December 2001, “Pat Robertson’s resignation this month as President of the Christian Coalition confirmed the ascendance of a new leader of the religious right in America: George W. Bush.”
Gary Bauer said, “I think Robertson stepped down because the position has already been filled”. “[The President] is that leader right now. There was already a great deal of identification with the president before 9-11 in the world of the Christian Right, and the nature of this war is such that it has heightened the sense that a man of God is in the White House.”
Ralph Reed, the Christian Coalition’s former president said, “I’ve heard a lot of the ‘God knew something we didn’t.’ In the evangelical mind, the notion of an omniscient God is central to their theology. He had a knowledge nobody else had: He knew George Bush had the ability to lead in this compelling way.”
Notice the sense that religious leaders have that George W. was chosen by God to lead the nation.
Marshall Wittman, a former Christian Coalition activist said, “He is the leader of the Christian Right”.
Religious broadcaster Janet Parshall says, “He’s so unhesitatingly unembarrassed by his faith. He works it into his verbiage, his public policy, his comportment… His faith so totally defines him.”
Bush frequently would mention the “power of prayer” in his speeches. For example, in speaking to a California crowd he said, “I can just feel it. I can’t describe it very well, but I feel comforted by the prayer.” He ask American’s to pray for “God’s protection … a spiritual shield that protects the country.” He persistently started speaking of “evil” and the “evil ones”, while scattering his speeches with biblical phrases. Bush’s chief speechwriter was Mark Gerson, a college theology major.
Religious Right Appointees
The support of the Religious Right was amply rewarded by Bush’s appointments to top personnel and policy-making positions, especially in the areas of: church-state relations, federal aid to religion, women’s rights, birth control, family aid, and federal volunteer programs.
Head of Office of Personnel Management – Kay Coles James, formerly Dean of Robertson School of Government at Pat Robertson-founded Regent University.
AmeriCorps VISTA – David Caprara – formerly director the American Family Coalition, a faith-based affiliate of Sun Myung Moon’s Unification Church (more on the Unification Church connection later). Caprara was one of Moon’s top grassroots organizers.
Attorney General – John Ashcroft – was lay activist in the Pentecostal Assemblies of God. He had himself anointed with cooking oil in the biblical fashion of King David before being sworn in.
First Department of Justice Chief of Faith-Based Office – Carl Esbeck – was formerly affiliated with Virginia based Christian Legal Society.
Special Counsel for Religious Discrimination (new position) – Eric Teen, formerly at Beckett Fund for Religious Liberty
Advisor to Office of Legal Education – Jay Sekulow formerly affiliated with School of Law at Regent University (Roberston-founded). Sekulow and others drafted a more permissive set of guidelines for School Prayer released by the Department of Education in 2003.
Some of Bush’s nominees were forced to withdraw.
National Labor Relations Board – J. Robert Brame III – withdrew when was discovered he had been board member of American Vision, an Atlanta based group favoring putting the United States under Biblical Law and opposed to women’s rights.
Presidential Advisory Committee on HIV and AIDS – Jerry Thacker – a conservative evangelical who called AIDS a “gay plague”.
Chair of the FDA’s Reproductive Health Drugs Advisory Committee – W. David Hager – author of As Jesus Cared for Women: Restoring Women Then and Now. Also, he co-authored with his wife Stress and the Woman’s Body, where emphasized the restorative powers of Jesus Christ in one’s life and recommended specific prayers and biblical readings for headaches and PMS.
These are sample appointments just to give you an idea.
Next the relationship between the Religious Right and Israel’s Radical Right.
The World is as You Dream It
At the risk of being called a tree hugging, bleeding heart, hippie loving, commie, do-gooder pansy … or worse, I will tell you about this book I read recently. The full title is The World is as you Dream It -- Shamanic Teachings from the Amazon and Andes. I read the book originally, other than for the intriguing title, because I wanted to know about what these Shamans were all about. (I used to run into them all the time playing Diablo 2). It turns out the story behind the title and the shamans were quite interesting.
The spiritual belief of these cultures in the Amazon and Andes is that you create the world around you by dreaming it. This is dreaming the sense of the little boy that dreams of becoming a Fireman when he grows up. Not like unconscious and totally uncontrolled. Yet the shaman and many of the people of this religion are able to enter a dream state, like an alternate universe, apparently at will. However, they do use psychotropic drugs to aid getting to these other universe type states sometimes. The Australian aborigines have a similar dream state that is part of their life.
At any rate, central to the beliefs of this religion is the idea that there should be balance between the spirit, the body and the environment. Narratives of discussions with these Shaman show them to be quite cogent, and surprisely environmental aware and concerned for the planet. They feel that the Western civilization has dreamed a dream of materialism and domination, where the objectives where to build bigger and bigger buildings and cities, and pave roads, and obtain as much as possible material goods. To control and dominate others, to conquer others, etc. They feel all this materialism is taking from and destroying nature and giving nothing in return. They feel that all the destruction is turning the Western dream into a nightmare. They of course see first hand the steady destruction of the Rain Forest every year, but the speak of a much more general trend as well. They feel that Westerners need to dream a new dream. A dream of harmony and co-operation with nature and others.
It is interesting that the use of creative imagery, and creating one’s own universes and so on closely aligns with the techniques described in the Philadelphia Doctorate Course. The idea is in dreaming a new world that people have to put it there first, before it manifests as a physical reality.
Another aspect of the Shaman’s lives of interest is that their hat in life is to instruct and heal. The book gave examples of the shaman healing chronic diseases and conditions that Western medical practitioners had given up on. They regularly heal people brought to them as though it’s their job and duty. And they consider it their duty to teach others of the wisdom they have obtained. On the other hand, these Shamans are not just some airy-fairy dopers with no confront on the realities of life. Some of this older shaman lived in times when they had to go kill a wild dangerous animal as a rite of passage, or go return with the head of an enemy and shrink it. But despite the ability to confront violent physical action, they appeared to be quite gracious, intelligent and dedicated to service to mankind and the planet.
Overall, the Shaman of the Amazon and Andes are quite interesting characters. Do you feel we need a new dream?
IS THE RELIGIOUS RIGHT REALLY RIGHT? - PART II
The Fundamentalism Project, created by the Academy of Arts and Sciences, found that large populations in several dozen countries had developed deep-rooted countermovements against secular trends in society. Among these countries the United States is prominent. Not all movements in all countries were identical but common among all groups, the study found, was “a discernible pattern of religious militancy by which self-styled ‘true believers’ attempt to arrest the erosion of religious identity, fortify the borders of the religious community, and create viable alternatives to secular institutions and behaviors.” The study found that the militance was most easliy created in self-controlled congregations such as in Protestantism, Islam, and Judaism. The Roman Catholic Church, having a hierarchical control did not fit the pattern well. Other factors found to promote formation of militant fundamentalists groups we unstable politics or civil war, economic distress, uprooted people, loss of territory, defeat by foreigners. Militant white Protestants in the southern United States met the project’s criteria as well as radical Jewish groups; many smaller movements in Islam; Hindus and Sikhs in India, Buddhists in Myanmar, Thailand, and Sri Lanka; Confucians in East Asia; and Pentecostals in parts of Latin America.
George W. Bush met many of the projects criteria for becoming a fundamentalist at the personal level. Having failed at several businesses (Arbusto, Harken), and with the crashing oil prices in the 1980’s collapsing more family businesses he scored high on the “frustration” factor. According to Bush, in 1985-86 Billy Graham “planted a mustard seed” for the salvation of his soul. This seed was apparently planted when Billy Graham was visiting George senior and Barbara Bush in their summer home in Kennebunkport, Maine in 1985. Not long after, by 1986, George junior was studying the Bible and had given up liquor. He was soon to present himself as “born-again” and test out holding the reins of Religious Right movement. It was arranged that George W. be the liaison, as it were, to the Religious Right for his father’s 1988 Presidential campaign. George W.’s role was actually little noticed by the press and not assigned much importance. George W. was assumed to just be another family supporter of George senior and was for the most part out of the spotlight. At the same time, little noticed, George senior was doing his own courtship of the Religious Right. George and Barbara Bush had invited Jim and Tammy Faye Baker to visit and told them how they enjoyed watching The P.T.L. Club on TV. George H.W. also visited the Jerry Falwell Liberty College and testified to his own born-again “life-changing experiences” and recorded it on video to be shown to evangelical leaders.
However, by the time George W. was preparing for the 2000 election, researchers found that he had been quite busy during the years since 1986 forging connections with many facets of the Religious Right.
George W. had for instance acquired the services of Doug Wead, an Assemblies of God minister for two decades. Some of Wead’s former well-known connections were with Amway, Pat Boone, and Jim and Tammy Faye Baker. During the years of 1986 to 1988, under the tutelage of Wead, George W. was acting as his father’s surrogate meeting with nearly every evangelical leader and right leaning Christian in the Religious Right. To help seal George H.W.’s religious connection Wead also helped come up with the book Man of Integrity about George senior. Clearly designed to win over the Religious Right, it chronicled the family connections to Billy Graham, Jerry Falwell, the Bakers, and many other evangelical and Religious Right leaders.
During the 1988 presidential race, televangelist Pat Robertson was a contender for the Religious Right vote in the election. He had a large Pentecostal following, and George H.W. Bush had Episcopalian background, and was thus distrusted by the Religious Right. However, when the results rolled in from the broad-based and decisive Southern GOP Primaries, it was clear that Team Bush and the backstage alliances forged by son Bush had won the day capturing an overwhelming majority of the Christian Right vote. George H.W. received 47% of the vote compared to 29% for Robertson, showing strongly with the white born-again Dixie Christians. Later Team Bush made amends with the Robertson Camp and brought them into the same tent. The Bush Campaign adopted many of the Robertson Campaign themes, such as:
Vehement attack of secular opposition to the Pledge of Allegiance
And Attack of the ACLU hostility to Religion
Thusly, he consolidated more of the Religious Right vote. Finally, in November of 1988, Bush had won 70% of the evangelical vote, which was just 5% below Reagan count in his major landslide victory of 1984.
Next, we will look at how son George W. Bush, with an Episcopalian father, and two Episcopalian grandfathers, all from New England, was able to rally the southern and Texan evangelical Christian right to get elected.
In contrast to his father, who had to court the Christian right vote with a large amount politicking and diplomacy, George W. was more a natural and more easily accepted candidate by the Religious Right. From is previous campaigning on his father’s behalf George W. had many contacts and connections. His overt religiosity was believable by the evangelical Right. As evidence of this powerful backing, in the 2000 election, George W. won only 48% of the popular vote but won 84% of the evangelical vote, exceeding even Reagan’s performance, and of his dads. In a show of strength never before seen in a Presidential election, the religious, conservative, southern centered coalition led by white Protestant fundamentalist and evangelicals account for 40% of the total vote for the elected President.
How did this large force come about? Between 1960 and 2000 the numbers of the Southern Baptist Convention rose from 10 million to 17 million. The Pentecostal Church membership had a huge rise from 2 million to 12 million, for example. On the other hand the membership of Episcopalians dropped from 3.5 million to 2 million, and for example, United Methodists dropped from 10 million to under 8 million. The overall trend was that strict fundamentalist-type churches were growing in numbers while the moderate churches, ala the Coolidge and Eisenhower eras, shrank.
It is interesting to contrast the beliefs of the Fundamentalist ministers and the more moderate Presbyterian clergy:
Fundamentalist
97% of the Assembly of God (AOG) ministers believe that Jesus is the only way to salvation
88% of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) clergy believe that Jesus is the only way to salvation
95% of the AOG clergy and 79% of the SBC believe the Devil actually exists
83% of the AOG and 54% of the SBC clergy believe in the church’s “rapture”
Main issues and concerns: abortion, pornography, gay rights
Presbyterian (Episcopalians and Congregationalists)
30% believe that Jesus is the only way to salvation
18% believe that the Devil actually exists
5% believe in the church’s “rapture”
Main issues and concerns: hunger and poverty, civil rights, environment
In 1988, 99% of the Assembly of God clergy and 83% of the Southern Baptist Convention clergy backed George W. Bush for president. Amazing percentages.
More on the influence of the Religious Right in politics and governmental policy in the next installment.
IS THE RELIGIOUS RIGHT REALLY RIGHT? - PART I
What is the Religious Right? It’s always good to start off by defining your terms. (Didn’t someone say that he who defines the terms wins the argument …)? Well Religious Right gets somewhat confusing because it is used in a religious sense and has also got mixed up in a political meaning, because the religious right have got involved with politics. In a religious sense it is often used synonymously with the Christian Right, as least in the U.S. It is based on the concept of Fundamentalism, which we will get back to. In a political sense it has become associated with right wing and conservative views. I will not attempt to define the political meanings of right wing and conservative in this blurb, but will concentrate on the religious origins of the group at this point.
Fundamentalism started, in the U.S., with conservative members of the Protestant denomination in the early 20th Century. It was in reaction such movements as Darwinism, Secularism, and more liberal forms of theology. Secularism can be defined as:
“In philosophy, the belief that one's own life can be best lived, and the universe best understood, with little or no reference to a god or gods”
The Fundamentalist movement was an attempt to get back to the basics of their Christian roots through literal interpretation of the Bible and a traditional interpretation of the Christian Doctrine. The five main points were:
1) the Virgin birth
2) the physical resurrection of Jesus
3) the infallibility of the Scriptures
4) the substitutional atonement
5) the physical second coming of Christ
These are pretty obvious as to meaning except perhaps #4. Here is an explanation:
Many of us grew up in traditions of Christianity that taught us the doctrine of substitutional atonement, although our teachers may not have used those specific words. Substitutional atonement has been, in many ways, the backbone of the Christian Church since the second century.
It works like this:
In the Garden of Eden God says to Adam and Eve, "Don't eat this fruit". Life goes happily along, apparently carefree and sin-free, until the serpent convinces Eve that it would be good to eat the fruit, and Eve convinces Adam to follow suit. This fruit theft is the original sin, which results in all of humanity being cast out of the sin-free garden, and into an eternity of living in a sin-drenched world. From that moment on, all humans born into this world are born tainted by that stolen fruit--born in sin.
This doctrine of original sin was further reinforced by the early church's fear and revulsion of all things sexual. Since birth is the result of sexual intercourse, and sexual intercourse is a sin, then the babies that are born as a result of that sin must themselves be sinful.
Now the problem for we humans is that if we are all born as sinners in a sin-drenched world, there is nothing we can do to restore ourselves to innocence. If we commit an act of sin, we may be able to make reparations and find forgiveness, but this original sin that we are each supposedly born with is beyond our own ability to repair. We didn't cause it, and therefore we can do nothing to atone for it.
And this is where the substitution part comes in. What if a human could be born without sin (say, to a virgin), and could live without sin, but then, knowing the state of human disgrace in the eyes of God, chose to be sacrificed to make up for our sinfulness, well... would that be enough?
So this is the doctrine of substitutional atonement: that Jesus, God's beloved child, died as a sacrifice to make up for all of the rest of us who are born in sin. That heavy weight of our original sin is removed, because Jesus substituted himself for us.
So the Fundamentalists believe all these doctrines are literally true, not symbolically, or parables to get a point across, but the actual facts and history of what has occurred. Thus some of the clashes with Darwinism, which based on researches and data collected, indicated that bodies might have evolved in a different manner. You might recall reading about the famous Monkey Trial in 1925. Tennessee had passed a law making it illegal to teach in school anything that seemed against Christian doctrine. Scopes, a high school teacher, was convicted by William Jennings Bryant, and defended by Clarence Darrow.
Originally, the strongest groups pushing Fundamentalism were the Baptists and the Presbyterians. They tried to suppress modern interpretations of religion and evolution many other times during the 1920’s but most of these other efforts failed.
During the 1930’s the Fundamentalism movement splintered in to many churches and denominations. Also, the public image of the movement became more negative as the general population tended to perceive them as extremists, and as anti-intellectual. Not accepting this image in the 1940’s a large part of the fundamentalists started an outshoot of fundamentalism called neoevangelicalism or later just evangelicalism. They sought a larger following through creating schools, youth programs, publications, and radio broadcasts. The original separatists fundamentalists saw this later evolution of the movement as a compromise of their basic beliefs and tended to disassociate themselves with the outshoot evangelists such as Billy Graham.
Nevertheless, as a whole the fundamentalists moved on through the century intact and in the late 70’s started to play a more public role. Their voice was starting to be heard more and more in the political arena in addition to TV and Radio Evangelical broadcasts. Because of a perceived threat against their basic religious tenets they opposed:
· Feminism
· Communism
· Legalized Abortion
· Homosexuality
· The Ban on School Prayer
· And still, the teaching of Evolution in School
· And in more recent years, the scientific teachings of the origin of the Universe (Cosmology)
· Secular Humanism (definition: a philosophy or world view that stresses human values without reference to religion or spirituality)
Americans describing themselves as Fundamentalists have grown to approximately 25% of the population. They played a major role in getting Ronald Regan elected. The idea of the Moral Majority was started by Evangelist Jerry Falwell in 1979 and was used liberally to drum up support in the Reagan campaign. A very strong political group currently is the Christian Coalition, headed by Pat Robertson. The Christian Right has continued actively in the political arena to forge many alliances, including for example the Southern Baptist Convention. From the late 70’s on Fundamentalism has been on a roll, as it turns out, not just in the U.S. but also all over the world. But it was particularly important in the U.S. as it began to shape the whole of the political landscape.
But more on the influence of the Religious Right on politics in the latter part of the 20th Century to present, in the next installment.
Islam Bedlam Smedlam – Part 3
"I find your lack of faith disturbing."
-- Darth Vader --
I have noticed that haters of Islam like to expound upon harshness and brutality of Sharia, the name of the system of Law under Islam. Actually, Sharia just means Law, but there are many Schools of Jurisprudence, and many interpretations. The laws of Islam are meant to be guidelines of justice and proper social behavior, and often prescribe specific punishments for breaking specific laws. Most of these laws of course come from a different time and place, perhaps 1500 years old. Many Christian laws from the era are similar. For example check the web page I created:
You will find many interesting references there. Most modern Muslims do not follow these laws and punishments to the letter, but interpret them for modern times. Just as Christians do. But there are some examples that are the exception to the rule that Muslim haters like to hold up in the spotlight and say, “See, all Muslims are evil”. For example, the practice of circumcision of the clitoris of women in some areas. This can even be the removal of the clitoris in some cases. But upon investigation of this practice that is often sighted, it turns out to be not something that is part of Sharia so much as a local cultural practice. The only area I found condoning this practice is in an area in Northern Africa where the ritual was part of the culture, outside of Islam. But because the practice occurred in a country where Islam is practiced it is attributed to all Islam.
I spoke with some Islam friends about this and they said:
“Men, ALWAYS makes all kinds of rules and try to make justification for it using religion. This is what happened with the female circumcision as well. But I want to repeat, this is a PAGAN tradition going back before Islam. We are fighting a culture that has been embedded for centuries. It is like celebrating Christmas on 25 of December and putting up trees. Jesus was NOT born on this day and Christmas tree was a tradition of the Pagans, not Christianity. It doesn't stop the priests to embrace it though :) FYI, yes, the most extreme case of female circumcision is cutting off the clitoris, which makes sex devoid of
feeling for them. I can't imagine this either and I loathe it.”
“For instance, female circumcision is not mandated at all by Islam, but it becomes a Law in some African countries. So.... we are fighting against intolerant cultures, which I believe take a long time to fight.”
Another brutal practice sometimes mentioned is “stoning” as punishment for a crime. It is hard to find many instances of this in modern times, though there are a few isolated instances of this occurring. Again, though this seems to be cultural phenomena where the local region has carried across this custom from many centuries ago, and modern Muslims don’t believe in this. See again the Biblical references for stoning as a punishment. In backward countries there have even been instances of Christian doing “stonings”.
Some countries, like Saudi Arabia and Iran, have a stricter interpretation of Sharia than other. There are laws like it being illegal for women to be in public without their face being covered. Again, these are local to the country and culture. You will see uncovered Muslim women’s faces all over the world, in newspapers, magazines and on the Internet. It is really not a widespread practice like some play it up to be, except in specific countries.
A quote from a Muslim on this:
“… there is no way I will have my wife dress up in that ridiculous black garment, covering her body head to toe, even her face :) But in Saudi, you will be punished if your wife shows her face! There is no teaching in Islam which says you must cover it.”
And so it goes. The pattern is the haters and distracters of Islam find an example which is severe, or out of touch with the Western sense of reality, and try to blow up this reality break to a generality of a “See, this is the way those evil Muslim bastards are!” thing. Or commonly, one of the radical groups actions is made to seem as if this is the way all Muslims do and think. Of course, if the media and government PR organizations wanted to they could demonize Christianity just as well. Check into the severe practices of Opus Dei, which has high status in the Catholic Church.
Are Christians radical? Here is a list of White Racist Church groups:
11th Hour Remnant Messenger
America's Promise Ministries
Artisan Publishers
Aryan Covenant Church / ACC Service
By Yahweh's Design
Christian Crusader for Truth
Christian Research
Church of Israel
Church of True Israel
Church of Yahshua the Christ
Elohim City
Faith Baptist Church and Ministry
Fellowship of God's Covenant People
Gospel Broadcasting Association
Gospel Ministries
Gospel of Christ Kingdom Church
Jubilee
Keys to the Kingdom Church
Kingdom Identity Ministries
Lord's Work
Melchizedek Vigilance
Ministry of Christ Church
Mission to Israel
New Beginnings
New Covenant Bible Church
Scriptures for American Ministries
Seattle White Racist Network
Upper Room Identity Fellowship
Virginia Christian Israelites
Virginia Publishing Company
And here is a list of Christian KKK groups:
Alabama White Knights of the KKK
America's Invisible Empire Knights of the KKK
American Knights of the KKK
Aryan Christian Knights of the KKK
Bayou Knights of the KKK
Carolina Knights of the KKK
Confederate Crusaders
Confederate Knights of the KKK
Georgia Konfederate Knights of the KKK
Imperial Klan's of America
International Association of the Knights of the KKK
International Keystone Knights of the KKK
Invisible Empire National Knights of the KKK
Invisible Empire, Pennsylvania KKK
Knights of the KKK
Knights of the White Kamellia
Knight Riders of the KKK
Kountry Knights of the KKK
Liberty Knights
Mississippi Royal Confederate Knights
Mississippi White Knights of the KKK
Mystic Knights of the KKK
National Knights of the KKK
New Order Knights of the KKK
North Georgia White Knights of the KKK
Northwest Knights of the KKK
South Arkansas Knights
Southern Cross Militant Knights of the KKK
Southern Knights of the KKK
US Klan's, KKK Inc.
United Confederate Knights of the KKK
United White Klan's
White Camellia Knights of the KKK
There are many more groups than this that are associated with Racism and Christianity. And then there the is the radical terrorist groups in Ireland, the IRA being the most prominent.
Then there are the Nazis. Hitler considered himself to be Christian. He said, in Mein Kampf:
"My feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God's truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter."
Many abroad consider the numerous armed Christian militia groups (all 50 states have them) as a bit radical (remember Waco).
So what we have here is religion getting intertwined in the affairs, and aberrations, of man. Perhaps what people are doing shouldn’t necessarily be generalized to be what the whole religion is about. Just because a person, or group says they belong to a religion doesn’t mean they represent that religion, and often radical groups are just the opposite. They misrepresent they religion they are supposed to be in. In my humble opinion, we must judge people, and groups, by their actions, separately. Judge the person, not the religion he says he belongs too.
NO MORE VERIZON ON THE HORIZON OR SEE YOU LATER DARTH VADER
First of all let me get off my rant about the phone company:
One day a few weeks ago, I picked up the phone and there was no dial tone. How odd I thought. It had been raining a lot so I thought maybe it was a temporary outage. I checked the other extension and it was out also. I decided to wait and try again later. Hours later, still no dial tone. So not wanting to waste valuable cell phone minutes, I waited till I got to a phone at my work site that was toll free locally. I tried to reach a repair service, but apparently Verizon doesn’t like you to talk to live people about repair problems anymore. I got a robot voice person who wanted to interrogate me about my problem. It asked all kinds of questions and wanted me to answer with voice responses. I felt stupid talking to a robotic voice at work, but after pressing 0, #, * repetitively and not being able to escape the robotic voice I finally answered the questions. After about 10 minutes of this the robotic voice decided I needed to have a real person look at the problem. Her automatic testing didn’t come up with anything. The robotic voice wanted to schedule me to have someone come out to the house, and, oh, by the way there might be an $86 charge for him to come out, and more hourly charges if he actually fixes anything. I was shocked. I hung up.
After giving myself a reality adjustment (I could remember the times when phone companies actually came to your house and went inside to make sure the phone worked and this was all part of the service of signing up with them) I called back later. This time after 10 minutes or so of deftly choosing keys and giving tricky responses I was able to work my way to talking to a real live person. We arrived at the same point eventually of her wanting to send out a repair person at a risk of $86 to just tell me if the problem was on one side of an imaginary line or the other. You see at some point the phone company decided to stop the free service at the electrical terminals that come up to the side of the house in a little box. Anything beyond that is on the other side (not unlike the dark side) and will cost you. I kept saying you want me to pay $86 to have this guy tell me which side of the line it is on. And she kept saying no it doesn’t cost you $86. I kept saying, you just said it would be $86. Finally, she re-interpreted that it was a 50% chance it would be $86. So I said, so you want me to gamble on an $86 phone charge. No thank you. As a consolation prize she told me how I should be able the wiring myself and tell which side of the line the trouble is on.
So next day, when it stopped raining, I went out and looked around the house. I couldn’t find the box at first, but by tracing down where the phone lines came from the nearby pole, I found the phone line went down the side of the house and disappeared behind a large scrub/tree/bush. This scrub was about 6’ high with lots of finely branched limbs. I ended up cutting down about 1/3 of the scrub (though it did fight back and manage to scratch me in several places) to get access to the box. There was supposed to be a box with a smaller box inside that you unscrew and inside is a place to plug your phone in for the test. Well the outer box was not covered, and had a whole gangle (that’s the official term for a group of wires) of wires hanging out all bare and wet. There was a smaller protected box inside which had a bolt instead of a screw on it. I took the cover off it and there was no plug to test anything with. Even though this totally didn’t match the description given, I figured out this must be where the imaginary line was hidden, so if I were able to test these wires for a connection I could still determine which side of the line the problem was on.
So the next day I got my friend at my work site to configure a phone connector with some wires on it to do the test with. Not knowing for sure which of the 4 wires coming in and out of the box were the incoming from the phone company (they are not labeled but have a secret phone company coloring code) I tried every possible combination. None produced a dial tone.
The next day I called the up the phone company, and after another 15 minute wait, I talked to a live person again. I told her the outside box on my house was not as described, so that I couldn’t easily do the test my self, but in fact I had tried it with my own devices and got no phone signal. She finally acceded to sending a repairman out for no charge, to tell me which side of the line the problem is. Great. Finally, after 3 days of no service something was to be done. Then, she told me the next available appointment would be in ALMOST 3 WEEKS. And I would have to be there all day from 8 am to 7 pm. Feeling dazed, beaten and overwhelmed with phone company bureaucracy I said fine, sign me up.
But, afterwards, this stuck in my crawl, and I started thinking there must be some alternative. Within a couple of days of checking out phone service on the web I found the solution. Internet Phone service. We already have high-speed internet with a cable modem so I ordered a phone adapater. It arrived a couple days later, I set it up myself with easy to follow instructions and waived bye-bye to Verizon. I phoned up to discontinue our landline and the operator asked me why I disconnecting. Was I moving? No, I said it was because Verizon has really really bad service. I said there was a day when phone companies had a monopoly and the customer had no choice but those days are over. Internet Phone has arrived. She stuttered around, seemingly befuddled, and just said “OK”.
As a by, my friend Paul discontinued his landline service after his phone went dead during the same week I did. It was enough for him that they wanted someone there from 8 am to 7 pm. Neither he nor Adrienne could be there all day long on any day, so bye bye phone company.
Now for the good part. I love my Internet Phone. I went with Broadvoice (if you go with them tell them I referred you). I checked out others including Vonage the first big one, and who is currently running TV ads. But Vonage is more expensive and the buyer reviews were not as good. I got a plan that costs $9.95/mo and I get unlimited local and CA state calling. It in all respects acts like a regular phone and there is no line noise. But there are tons of more features than my old-fashioned land phone. For example, I can go on the Internet and check for phone messages, from anywhere, and actually listen to the messages from a remote Internet site. There are like 2 pages full of *NN number options to do things like call back last number, 3 way, forward, redial, etc. Also, the call anywhere in the US, Canada, and Western Europe plan is like $10 more a month. If I want to travel I can change the plan temporarily and change back again when at home for no charges. Also, you can actually take the phone adapter (fits in the palm of your hand) with you to other locations and plug it into any high-speed Internet connections, plug a phone in and you are in business. Also, you can buy and alternative phone # for a couple of bucks more, which is in any area code. So, e.g., mom and pop live in area code 918. With your alternative 918 phone # they can dial you as a local call.
Anyway, the features go on and on. I highly recommend Internet phone as an alternative for old-fashioned phone company service. And UP THE PHONE COMPANY.
Islam Bedlam Smedlam – Part 2
"Luke, don't give in to the hate--that leads to the dark side." --Ben's spirit to Luke--
Apparently, a part of the hate campaign against Islam is to take quotes from Islamic scripture and try to show that all Muslims hate infidels (non-believers) and that Muslims want kill every one that is not Muslim. There are certain quotes from their scripture, that on the surface would tend to support this viewpoint, and these quotes I have noticed have been spread wide and far on the Internet. When I asked Muslims about these quotes they almost always replied that they were taken out of context and were used to create a distorted view of Islam. They almost always encouraged me to read the Quran myself, and read the passages before and after to get the true meaning. There was a very prevalent attitude of ‘read the Quran and decide for yourself what it really says’. It was also pointed out to me many times that Islam translates to “Peace”. A friend countered that the literal translation was “submit”. I found that Islam scholars interpret Islam to mean “peace through submission to Allah”. So I will leave that in the hands of the scholars whose religion is theirs to interpret.
So from what I have researched from Islamic references and communications with Muslims the references to violent actions is the Quran refer to defending oneself or group when attacked by others.
'If someone kills another person – unless it is in retaliation for
someone else or for causing corruption in the earth – it is as if he had murdered all mankind'
The general drift is that violence is not an OK way of dealing with life, but sometimes others attack you and you have to attack back or be wiped out. In those cases violent action against the enemies that attacked you is condoned. One of my Muslim correspondents said:
“There is NO verse in Qur'an which caused for first offense against anyone, any group. There ARE verses in Qur'an which deals with killing non-Muslims, only when they attack Muslims. So killings are justified if and when we are attacked.”
This sort of makes sense to me. Further, he notes:
“The idea about Muslims wanting to kill infidels is WRONG. How do u you explain the fact that there are about more than 1.5 billion Muslims on this earth? We can't do it by killing everyone, right? Moreover, this is the fastest growing religion in Europe and US! Have we been killing you guys? NO.”
I think the point is well taken that the huge expansion of the Islam religion over the past 50 years has not been by conquering countries by force.
“If your Lord had willed, all the people on the earth would have believed. Do you think you can force people to be believers?” (Qur'an, 10:99)
Nevertheless, it is undeniable that there are some Muslims out there, be they in a small minority that would like to kill westerners, infidels, or Americans. One factor in this scenario is concept of ‘Honor and Revenge’. This concept holds much more prominence in many Arab cultures than it does here in the West. It is apparently considered that Honor is more important than ones individual life (where have I heard that before) in many cases. For example, if a member of one’s family were killed it would be perfectly acceptable to take vengeance on the killer or the killer’s family, and supported by cultural tradition to do so. And perhaps actually one’s duty to take revenge. Perhaps even to the extent of sacrificing one’s own life to take revenge. Although, I think the Western world has similar ideas, seldom is there the intensity or single-mindedness of avenging one’s honor that we find in the Arab world. So, when the U.S. in some fashion bombs, kills, or maims those in their family, or supports those who do (Israel), many Arabs might take this as a point of honor and vow vengeance on the sources. For what I can gather this more a cultural, i.e. Arab thing, than Islamic, although as pointed out above there is some support for the idea of defending oneself in the Quran.
As a counter-point, the attacks on Islam for supposedly condoning violence and attacks on non-believers, etc., although perhaps as stated taken out of context, are certainly not unique to Islam. In Christianity, for example, the bible is full of violent references, cruel punishments, and severe laws. I have gathered a collection of Bible quotes for your perusal:
These have been categorized by
Violent & Severe Justice
Religious Intolerance
Slavery
Sacrifice
Severe Rules
War
Women
and Homosexuality
You may be surprised by the intensity of violent actions prescribed in these passages. I believe that both in the case of the Quran and the Bible that the actions and mode of thinking was a sign of the harshness of the times. This is the way people dealt with social issues back in those days. Just as most Christians do not attempt to model the current day justice systems after the old ways in the Bible, most Muslims do not attempt the model justice after the old ways either. However, there are exceptions in both camps. The Catholic supported, and very influential group, the Opus Dei, adheres to very strict traditional interpretations of the religion and practice, including self-flagellation. There are certain dictatorial countries, such as Iran, that enforce a certain interpretation if Islam, which is not in common with the rest of the Islam world.
To give more reality on what Muslims that I contacted think, here are some quotes:
“I … disagree that we should hate non-Muslims brothers actually he misquoting the verse of Quran that non-Muslims are the enemies of Muslims”
“definitely NO, Muslims don’t hate Non-Muslims. I have very good non-Muslims [friends] who I really respect and they also respect me ,mashallah (God bless). I don’t believe in the concept - e.g. that if one non-Muslim is bad/cruel then all non-Muslims will be bad, and of course vise versa.”
“Islam definitely does not promote killing! Its certainly not the intension of Muslims to WIPE out non-Muslims, sorry I don’t know where u got that one from. Islam is about inviting people to the truth, letting everyone know of the real message/word of God.”
“My dear, Islam does not teach hatred against other religions. But it does ask you to fight for your liberty & help your brethren too who happen to have been slaved in their own land! Mind you exceptions (being fundamentalists/extremists) are there in every religion but they are usually in minority & still bring bad name due to their acts.”
“Islam … is a very tolerant way of life and no matter what your religion Muslims must respect you and treat you with excellent manners the holy prophet peace showed the best excellent manners and especially with the non Muslims he treated them with utmost respect to give you an example a person once urinated in the prophets mosque immediately the companions were about to draw their swords but the prophet stopped them all and spoke to the person so softly that he embraced Islam, Islam is beautiful do not judge Islam by the few evil politically greedy people on the planet follow the example of the prophet.”
“No Muslim would hate any human being without any reason. We can disagree with them with their belief system but that difference does not give us an excuse to wage a war against them. According to the Islamic Law (Shar'iah) non-Muslims living in a Muslim country are called the "protected ones." Because they and their interests are protected by the Muslim Government.”
“Is it the intentions of Muslims to wipe out all non-Muslims in the world? I think, if this is our intention we're succeeding in it aren’t we? *wink* Muslims have no intentions of killing every non-Muslim on earth. But yes, our job is to introduce Islam to them. To accept it or not to accept it, its their choice.”
“In my opinion, such misconceptions and the actions of a small group of disillusioned "Muslims" are hurting Islam more than anything else in the entire history of Islam. How can killing innocent random people regardless of their faith (a lot of Muslims are also losing their lives along with non-Muslims) help propagate the message of Islam ("Peace")? How these killers sleep at night or even pray in front of Allah five times a day knowing in their hearts that the blood of innocent humans is dripping from their hands.”
________________________________________________
Quotes from the Quran:
“WE HAVE NOT SENT DOWN TO YOU (Muhammad) BUT FOR PEACE AND MERCY FOR THE WHOLE HUMANITY AND FOR THE WHOLE WORLDS.”
'Let there be no compulsion in religion: Truth stands out clear from Error: whoever rejects evil and believes in God hath grasped the most trustworthy hand-hold, that never breaks.”
'... I worship not that which you worship. Nor will you worship that which I worship. .... To be your religion, and to me my religion' [surah 109 : ayats 2-6]
________________________________________________
Sayings of the Prophet Muhammad:
"Whoever hurts a Non-Muslim citizen of a Muslim state hurts me, and he who hurts me annoys God." (Bukhari)
"He who hurts a Non-Muslim citizen of a Muslim state, I am his adversary, and I shall be his adversary on the Day of a Judgement." (Bukhari)
"Anyone who kills a Non-Muslim who had become our ally will not smell the fragrance of Paradise." (Bukhari)
“All Mankind is from Adam and Eve, an Arab has no superiority over a non-Arab, nor a non-Arab any superiority over an Arab; also a white has no superiority over a black, nor a black has any superiority over a white – except by piety and good action.”
________________________________________________
Next, a discussion of Sharia.
Viva (or not) La France - The French Revolution
Earlier in the week I watched the History Channel presentation of The French Revolution. The show pointed out that this event (if you call what occurred over a period of many years an event) was the single most significant event in Western Civilization. It signaled the end of the Feudalism system, the downfall of Monarchies, and the real sense among the people that they should have equal rights with the aristocracy. It rocked the foundations of the rest of Europe and changed it for ever. At the same time it was a display of senseless murder and violence in one of the most brutally bloody times in recent history. Many interesting characters intertwined in the weaving of the events in and surrounding the Revolution including King Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette, Robespierre, Marat, and Napolean. I would highly recommend catching this when it comes around again tomorrow night if you have the chance. See
Islam Bedlam Smedlam
"Luke, you're going to find that many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view." - Ben Kenobi
I have noticed recently that many people I know to be intelligent engage in a rather primitive black and white type thinking when it comes to the Islam religion and Muslims. Its sort of an identity like 9/11 = muslims = evil. Therefore all muslims are evil. Really an amoeba level ‘thinking’. This viewpoint is then backed up with all kinds of generalties about all the nasty and horrible things that muslims, as a generality do. Doubting seriously that all this generalization could be true I decided to do some research and find out what the facts where.
First lets make sure we understand the words. Islam is a religion founded by Mohammed in the 6th Century. A muslim is a follower and believer in Islam. Islam is actually is very similar to Judaism and Christianity in that they believe the Old testatments and New testaments are Holy Books. They come from the same place on this. They also believe Jesus was a prophet (though not divine or God himself). The departure point, as such, is that they believe a later Prophet, Mohammed, also spoke the word of Allah (or God). The Quran is a Holy book deriving directly from Allah. The Hadiths are interpretations of the words and life of the Prohphet Mohammed, passed down through generations. Much like the accounts of the apostles in Christianity. Islam is the fastest growing religion in the world.
Here are some stats about Islam. They are some where between 1 – 1 ½ billion in numbers worldwide. Islam is one of the 4 major religions in the world (Christianity, Hinduism, and Buddhism being the other 3) and easily the fastest growing of the 4, increasing 235% in the last 50 years. Islam is the second largest reiligious group in France, Great Britain and the United States.
There is a mulsim population in nearly every country in the world, of some size, just as most countries at least have some Christian faction. Muslims come from all different cultural backgrounds and are of all races. A common misconception I have run into is that many people believe that all muslims are Arab, and live in the Middle East or nearby. Totally not true. Although, there are some countries that are very strongly muslim in the Middle East, this is not the general rule that either they come from only this area, or that they are always dominant in the coutry they are in. The main point is that Islam is a religion, not a race or particular culture.
Just as there are all flavors of Christianity, Protesant, Catholic, Lutheran, etc. there are different flavors of Islam. The major groups are Sunni and Shia, the difference based on different interpretations of their scripture. There are also fundamentalist groups just like there are right-wing fundamentalist Christian groups. There is a very small minority of militant muslims, just as there are small groups of militant Christians (IRA, e.g.). Often times these small militant groups get all the publicity and the implication is that this is what Islam is all about. From my research this could not be farther from the truth.
In my next installment of this little exposition of Islam I will tell you what my conversations with many muslims revealed about what they really feel about violence, militants, Sharia Law and other controversial subjects.
Miracle on 34th Street
My wife, Dawn, and I attended a stage production of Miracle on 34th Street yesterday, and I was quite amazed that the theme was so close to our ideas and beliefs. I had sort of forgotten a lot of the details of the story since last seeing the movie, some years ago. But the main anatagonists in the story were the psychs. First the vocational psychologist with his degree in abnormal psychology who immediately tried to get Santa (Kris Kingle) fired from Macy's. Of course Kris made fun of him in the interview and showed how in fact he the psychologist was neurotic. And then the other psychs and legal system trying to get him delcared as insane. You will probably remember the main drama of the story was around the big trial to decide whether or not he was mentally ill. The other interesting part was the very practical and completely 'common sense' stance of the mother and her little girl taught to not believe in Santa or anything else that is not in the 'real' world. Kris's therapy for this little girl was to drill her in using her imagination. I am currently listening to the PDC tapes, and was struck by the parallel to the importance on being able to imagine and create one's own universe. In the end I was so impressed with the story I had to go home and check if maybe it was written using a pen name of our founder. Great story!
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